What Might Have Been, What May Be
by TheBookRider
Summary: Astrid and her friends visit a haunted house for a local dare in the city of Berk. Astrid's skeptical of the whole "ghost" rumor until strange things start occurring... Is it too late to change the past? Modern AU. Supernatural AU. *Thank you for 10k views!*
1. Maybe the Door Opens

**What Might Have Been, What May Be**

 **Maybe the Door Opens**

"It's inexplicable! Perplexing! Insoluble!"

"I don't care!" Astrid Hofferson snapped back at her best friend, Ruffnut Thorsen.

"It's a haunted house! What's not to like?" Ruffnut cried, exuberant.

Astrid took a sip of her smoothie, not even bothering to answer the question. Ruffnut was talking about the mysterious Raven Mansion on the outskirts of the city of Berk. It had been owned two hundred years ago by a millionaire who had gone mad and killed his son in a rage before dying by his own hands. It was a popular dare devil stunt for the teens of Berk to try to last a night there. So far no one had made it even three hours.

"Earth to Astrid," Ruffnut sang, getting Astrid's attention back.

Astrid sighed. She had wanted to get a smoothie at the local drug store with Ruffnut to relax, but she should have known better. There was always a complication when the crazy blonde was involved. "I just don't want to go looking for ghosts!"

"Oh, it will be _fun_! We pack a couple of sleeping bags and flashlights, then go wandering around the house for a couple of hours. We find a cold spot, then BAM!" Ruffnut pretended to shoot a gun into the roof of the drug store. "We have bragging rights!"

"You and Tuffnut already have bragging rights for the other crazy stunts you do," Astrid muttered. "Wasn't bungee jumping while hugging a goat enough?"

"No. Now are you coming or not?"

Astrid stared remorsefully at the bottom of her smoothie cup. "They just don't fill these up like they used to." The owner of the establishment, overhearing her comment, sent her a glare.

"Oh, and Snotlout's bringing the snacks," Ruffnut added.

Astrid groaned. "Him? Please, no." Snotlout was a horrible, narcissistic flirt, and Astrid didn't want to spend a whole night listening to his achievements.

"Too late! The invitation has already been sent!" Ruffnut reared back her arm and threw her smoothie cup across the room. It landed in the trash can perfectly, earning another icy glare from the owner. " _Yes!_ My mother wanted at least another man around besides Tuffnut for protection before she gave me permission, and he was the only one available. Can I count on you to be there, Hoff?"

"Fine." Astrid sighed, not looking forward to the impending date. She was just _dying_ in suspense!

"All right! Meet us at the gate at six!" Ruffnut hopped off her bar stool, socked a light punch in Astrid's shoulder as way of saying good bye, and waltzed out of the establishment.

Astrid chucked her smoothie cup in the direction of the trashcan, but it missed completely. The drug store owner sent her a scowl, informing her that she was not the random tossing pro that Ruffnut was and she was staying past her welcome. She sighed as she retrieved her cup and dumped it in the trashcan on her way out the door, wondering what she had just gotten into.

…

Astrid pedaled her bike over the hill. The dirt road was kicking up dust and making it hard to breathe, but Astrid hardly broke a sweat. The gate of the mansion soon appeared, black and bold against the red terrain. Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Snotlout were already waiting there.

"'Lo!" Astrid raised a hand and brought her bike to an abrupt stop. She dismounted and leaned it against the others' bicycles, which they had all piled in a heap.

"Hello, gorgeous!" Snotlout purred, raking a hand through his greasy jet black hair.

"Hi, Astrid!" Tuffnut greeted her, flashing her the peace sign. Ruffnut duplicated the gesture, even though she probably had no idea what it meant.

Astrid bent down and unstrapped her ghost hunting pack from her bike rack, ignoring Snotlout for the moment. She had thrown only the basics into it: an extra pair of shoes (in case she needed to run away from Snotlout), a toothbrush, sleeping bag, and snacks which consisted of M & M's, peanut butter bars, and Nutella with a spoon to eat it straight out of the jar (just in case Snotlout had forgotten his duty).

"All right." She squinted at the mansion, although the sunset was making it hard to make out anything about its architecture. "What are we doing first?"

"I thought you would never ask!" Ruffnut rubbed her hands together like she was trying to create a fire between them. "We're going to sleep on the main floor."

"Have you actually been inside?" Astrid asked.

"Loads of times!" Tuffnut assured her.

"Which means you haven't, otherwise we wouldn't be here," Astrid corrected. "This should have been thought through more. That building should be set for destruction. It's been sitting empty for about a million years and it could collapse on us."

Snotlout struck a dramatic pose. "Never fear, gorgeous! You shall have me to protect you!"

"Quit calling me gorgeous," Astrid snapped.

"You worry too much, Astrid." Tuffnut switched his heavy pack from one shoulder to the other and hefted it up and down a couple of times.

"I thought you worked out a plan, Ruffnut." Astrid pinched the bridge of her nose. Why had she agreed to this crazy scheme in the first place? Now it all seemed hair-brained.

Ruffnut looked insulted. "We _always_ wing it, Astrid."

"Just like the beautiful wings you would have as a Valkyrie," Snotlout put in smoothly, winking at Astrid. She wanted to clobber him.

"Hellooo," Tuffnut interrupted. "It's getting darker. We need to get in there soon."

Astrid took another glance at the mansion. None of them said anything, but they all grabbed their bags and started walking towards the house. Astrid did not believe in ghosts; they weren't practical and didn't fit in with any of her plans for the future. The building looked like one of _those_ houses in every neighborhood that was dilapidated, overgrown with weeds, and in need of a dozen fresh coats of paint.

The front steps were rotten with half of them missing. Each of the ghost-hunting group carefully picked their way up the them. Only one broke when Snotlout accidentally put a little too much weight on it. Of one accord, they all stopped on the front porch before the weather-beaten front door.

"So," Ruffnut drew the word out, pronouncing it more like "sew". "Tuffnut! You go first!"

"Why me? We're twins, so you should go first!"

"But you were born five minutes before me!" Ruffnut rejoined. "Aren't you always wanting to be the first at _everything?"_

"Snotlout's expendable. He should go first," Astrid suggested.

"That's right!" Snotlout proudly declared. Then his brow furrowed. "Wait – what's expendable mean?"

"Yeah, Snotlout!" The twins spoke as one. "You go first!"

"I'm not-"

"Whatever." Astrid marched to the door. "Since all of you are wimps, I'll go!" She violently wrenched the door open as if to startle anyone who might be hiding behind it. The door handle came off in her hand as she stepped inside the house and inhaled the dusty haze that engulfed the whole entryway and living room.

"See? Nothing but a dusty old building." Astrid tossed the handle away and peered around as the rest of the gang came in behind her. The walls, covered in old striped wallpaper, were speckled with mold and peeling at the top and bottom from water damage. The carpet was more like strings braided across decaying floor boards. An odd contrast, Viking war shields hung off the wall and various Viking-age knickknacks littered the mantel above the limestone fireplace.

"So far, so good." Ruffnut wandered over to one of the moth-eaten couches and plopped down. Astrid would have bet her favorite pair of running shoes that several disgusting tiny insects flew into the air.

"I wouldn't sit there if I were you," Astrid warned.

"Who would?" Snotlout drawled. "When we get married, baby, I will personally buy you the best furniture in Berk that you can sit on and look pretty!"

"We're not getting married and I'm not your baby!" Astrid dropped her bag onto the rug in the center of the couches. The space was pretty big and untouched by vandals with the exception of the wooden mantelpiece where tons of people had carved their initials and the date. Astrid meandered over to inspect it, and her eyes wandered up to the paintings above.

"So that must be the kid who died," Tuffnut whispered, coming up behind her. His voice was subdued, a rare occurrence.

The largest portrait was of a family. A man was in the background, and with good reason. If he had been in the front, his red beard and physique would have taken up the whole frame. In front of him was a thin woman with green eyes and a subdued shade of the man's hair. She had her hands on the shoulders of a teenager with freckles and even greener eyes. Unlike his parents and how most people posed for portraits back in his time, he was grinning as if he had a secret and wanted to share it with Astrid. She almost touched the painting, but remembered just in time that it was probably fragile and would disintegrate under her fingers.

"What made his father kill him?" Ruffnut wondered.

"And what happened to the mother?" Astrid added.

"It was probably his flabby muscles," Snotlout sneered. "Who'd want a son like that?"

As Astrid opened her mouth to say something back to him, a loud crash came from behind them. They all whipped their heads around in unison to discover the couch was overturned.

"I am hurt!" Tuffnut groaned. "I am so very hurt!"

Ruffnut breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, it was just him." She went over to help him up.

"What do you mean, 'just him'?!" Tuffnut demanded. "I happen to be one of the best frozen yogurt hockey players in the world!"

He was referring to when the twins had paid an ice hockey rink to freeze frozen yogurt instead of water for ice. They had proceeded to play a one-on-one game of hockey, somehow breaking the arena's Jumbotron in the process. It was a miracle, in Astrid's opinion, that they hadn't gone bankrupt from having to pay for repairs to fix it.

"Say!" Ruffnut clapped her hands. "Why don't we all go independently explore this place? Find some ghosts!"

"How about we find a mirror?" Snotlout sniffed. "I'm pretty sure all of the dust is collecting in my hair gel."

"You use gel?" Astrid asked. "I thought you used gorilla glue."

"Ha, ha, ha." Snotlout winked at her. "Good one. I like a princess who has a sense of humor and an appreciation for my hair!"

"I think I'm going to be sick," Tuffnut muttered.

"Splitting up sounds good! Meet back here in an hour? Then we'll put up our sleeping bags." Ruffnut headed towards a swinging door that looked like the entrance to the kitchen, and Tuffnut and Snotlout each picked other doors on the ground floor. Astrid didn't like to do things halfway. She went upstairs to the next level of the house.

She could tell the mahogany staircase had once been finished with a nice stain, but it had rubbed away in all but a few places. She ran her thumb along those shiny patches as she picked her way up, careful to avoid any rotting steps. The main floor was about thirty feet below her, and she peered down once she reached the top.

The hallway was covered in a rose print floor runners that had survived in better condition than the carpet downstairs. Black and white photographs adorned the walls, the majority of them depicting the loving family that had once lived together in the house. What had gone wrong? Astrid wondered.

Going all out, Astrid walked down to the end of the lengthy hallway and chose the last door on the left to open. Squaring her shoulders, she turned the knob. It was locked tight.

 _A/N: So I know some ghost stories are going around. I do not want to be a copycat, and I believe my story is heading in a completely different direction than the other ones. Hope ye enjoy it!_

 _Rider_


	2. I Called, But None Came

**I Called, But None Came**

"Come on," Astrid muttered. Surely some teenager had busted all the locks open during a ghost hunt. Why did the door she picked have to be closed? As if it would do any good, she tried the knob again. Miraculously, it swung open like it had been oiled only seconds before.

"Odd." She was positive it had been bolted the first time she tried. She turned the knob again, but the solution to the mystery didn't become clear. Bypassing the problem momentarily, she stepped into the room.

The room was tiny compared to the rest of the house, and its furnishings were spartan. A large disintegrating bed without a canopy was shoved into one corner, and an old-fashioned scroll desk was pushed up against one of the dark green walls next to it. On the opposite wall was a large grandfather clock enclosed in a ramshackle antique closet.

"Cool!" Astrid left the door open and padded over to inspect the timepiece. The hours were kept in Roman numerals, which Astrid had to count off to see at what time the clock had stopped. It didn't sound as if it was still running, but while Astrid was watching, the minute hand slowly crept forward.

Astrid did a double take. There was no way the clock could still be running after sitting there for so long. Maybe someone had taken the time to stick a new battery in it while they were ghost hunting? No, that couldn't be true, because it didn't run on batteries.

Astrid glanced down at the motionless pendulum. Instead of hanging straight down like it should have been, it was positioned at a weird angle. Astrid backed away from the clock. Suddenly, she noticed the sun's last rays were disappearing through the remains of the tattered curtains on the only window in the room and she would soon be left in darkness.

"Should have brought a flashlight, Astrid," she told herself, feeling a bit edgy. Not too much, though, because Hoffersons didn't scare easily. Maybe Ruffnut had packed an extra flashlight. The little ghost-hunt-turned-exploration had been her idea, so maybe she had come more prepared. Astrid turned around to leave and stopped short.

The door was innocently closed.

"Nothing to worry about," Astrid said to no one in particular, centralizing her thoughts on rationalizing the situation. "A draft blew it shut." She checked: There was no draft. _Maybe Ruffnut and Tuffnut had shut it on her as a prank?_ If they had, she was going to go given them a piece of her mind. Now wasn't the time nor the place to prank people. Astrid tried to leave, but the door wouldn't budge. It was locked like it had been when she had first tried to get into the room.

"This isn't funny!" Astrid shouted, slamming her palm into the door and making a ruckus that would have raised the dead. "Come on and open the door! The game's up!" She pressed her ear against the door, hoping to hear some indication that one of the twins was coming to receive what was due him or her, but nothing came. _If only she had a skeleton key._

"You've got to be kidding me." Astrid hunted around for something hefty like a crowbar to break down the door and as she did so, she noticed that the room was oddly bare of personal possessions. Astrid herself had a variety of trinkets lying around: a photograph on her wall, sports awards on her dresser, or vacation souvenirs piled onto an undersized shelf. Whoever had occupied the room either hadn't cared much about decorating things or was a monk. When her search turned up fruitless, she returned to the door. Squatting, she peered at the lock.

 _No way on the Bifrost Bridge._ She determined that the door's mechanism locked from the inside, and she knew she hadn't locked it! She'd only opened it! Maybe she'd accidentally done something to it. She'd even locked herself out of her house the other day, so perhaps it was possible. Astrid sighed, glad to have been able to mentally explain it. How was she going to get out?

"Ruffnut! Tuffnut!" Astrid shouted, pounding on the door again.

"Snotlout!" she gritted through her teeth with vexation.

"Help me out here!" _There._ If Astrid Hofferson had vocalized a plea for help, they would know that the situation was drastic. Expecting to get the same results as the last time, she tried the door again. This time, however, she went crashing through and sprawled out on the floor, dust filling her mouth.

"Yuck." She tried to spit it out before rolling onto her back. Why had the door seemed locked? Perhaps she had turned the knob wrong.

"What took you so long, Astrid?" Ruffnut asked, head popping into Astrid's line of vision.

"What took _you_ so long?" Astrid snapped. "I called you for ages! What's it take to get a little help around here?"

"No, you didn't." Ruffnut rolled her eyes. "We've been waiting down here for _hours_."

"Huh? It hasn't been that long." Astrid sat up to discover she was on the first floor of the mansion, with Snotlout and Tuffnut staring at her. "Take a picture. It'll last longer."

"Sorry." Snotlout grinned. "You're just so pretty, I couldn't help it."

"KNOCK IT OFF!" Steam poured out of Astrid's ears. "Why didn't you come when I yelled?"

"Why?" Tuffnut asked. "Did anything exciting happen?"

Astrid felt like tearing her hair out. "It was just exhilarating when you shut and locked the door on me! Which one of you did it? You're going to regret it!"

"We didn't do anything," Tuffnut protested, quaking a bit. "None of us went up to the second floor."

"I know you did!" Astrid was _not_ going mad.

"We didn't," Snotlout testified, "although if I knew you were up there, I would have come to your rescue!"

"ARGH! WHATEVER!" Astrid stormed over to the couch and sat down hard. The extra force made the bottom of the couch fall through, sending more dust and debris into the air and bruising her already damaged pride in the process.

"Are you okay, Astrid? Astrid?" Ruffnut asked, concerned.

Astrid was muttering under her breath, face red and unattractive, but she didn't care. She _knew_ she had asked for help. Why were they all denying it?!

"We should roll out our sleeping bags." Tuffnut rubbed his nose awkwardly, his glance darting between Astrid and the bags on the rug.

"Yeah!" Ruffnut said with more gusto then necessary.

"Fine." Astrid hauled herself out of the remnants of the couch and gave it a kick, which only accomplished bruising her toe and making her pride feel better. She found her backpack and sleeping bag. The ties around the bag were double knotted, and Astrid groaned. Why had she done that?

"Need some help?" Snotlout asked. "I have _strong_ muscles, you know."

"Did I _ask_ for help?" Astrid yanked hard on the knots and eventually broke the cord, which only provoked her anger more.

"What exactly did you find upstairs that's making you so...mad?" Ruffnut asked warily. "You came down acting weird."

"I'm not mad," Astrid said through clenched teeth, and she shot Ruffnut a smile to placate her. Why was she so worked up? It was just a stupid door and a stupid, stupid clock that could be easily explained away. The door's mechanism got stuck. The inventor of the timepiece was eccentric.

 _There,_ Astrid thought. _Nothing to get agitated about._ "Find any ghosts?" she asked to clear away the tension she had caused now that there was a terminal to the matter.

"Not a single cold spot!" Tuffnut groaned. "The ghosts should come out later though."

"I found a mirror, but I couldn't pry it off the wall!" Snotlout whined. "Can you check your bags again to see if anyone has one?"

"Check your head to see if you have a brain," Astrid mumbled under her breath, unrolling her bag, finishing the square formation they had made with their beds in the spacious area. She dumped her bag at the head of hers. The little set up reminded her of a vagrant camp.

"We should tell ghost stories!" Ruffnut declared, plopping onto her bag. "And maybe start a fire in the fireplace!"

"Are you sure that's safe?" Astrid glanced at the fireplace. "We don't want to get arrested for burning this place down, even if it needs a good fire job."

"Tons of people have done it!" Tuffnut scurried over to the woodbox. "See? There's even wood in here. This place needs to get lit up!"

"Oh, that reminds me." Astrid snapped her fingers. "Can I borrow a flashlight, Ruffnut?"

"Sure." Ruffnut dug around in her bag and tossed something at Astrid. "Catch."

Astrid caught the flying projectile. "Thanks."

WOOSH! A fire sprang up in the fireplace, and Tuffnut stepped back from it, his eyebrows singed. He shot them a double thumbs up. "We have liftoff, Houston!"

Ruffnut giggled. "You look like a vagabond, Tuff."

"Huh?" Tuffnut inspected his clothes, trying to see her meaning. "What's wrong with the way I dress?" he demanded.

"It's not the Stone Age." Ruffnut rolled her eyes. "Who _wears_ bell bottoms anymore?"

"Excuse me?" Tuffnut marched up to his twin. "Coming from the person who uses her closet to house alligators!"

 _"_ _That was in fifth grade!"_

"At least I-"

"Hey, Tuffnut!" Astrid broke in calmly, before they could cover any more terrain in their argument. "Your pants are on fire."

"EXTERMINATE!" Tuffnut screamed, swatting his backside. While he had been arguing, he had gotten too close to the blaze and now his bell bottoms had nice scorch marks.

Choking sounds came from behind her, indicating Snotlout was laughing his head off. Astrid thumped him on the back to clear out his system.

"Did you bring the snacks?" Astrid asked him, her stomach growling suddenly. She had eaten a light dinner in foresight of donuts and sugary stuff.

"I did!" Snotlout ran over to his bag and unzipped it, spilling out smaller plastic baggies. "We have beef jerky, figs, and pickled pigs' feet!"

"Give me some of that!" Tuffnut made a dive for one of the pouches, his pants momentarily forgotten. As the rest of the group dug into the snacks, Astrid dropped down onto her sleeping bag, disappointed at Snotlout's choices of snacks, but enjoying how the fire was warming the house to a cozy temperature. Maybe the rest of the evening wouldn't be so bad. She would dig into her own stash once the rest of the group was asleep.

"Time to tell those ghost stories!" Ruffnut hummed, savoring her pickled pig's foot. "Who wants to go first?"

"Nothing too scary," Snotlout warned.

"Why? You afraid?" Astrid jeered. "If you want, we can tell stories of cute little bunnies."

Snotlout sat up straighter. "Of course I'm not afraid! Lead on, Ruffnut! Tell us the scariest one you've got!"

Ruffnut rubbed her hands together evilly and lowered her voice to a raspy whisper. "Once upon a time..."

"BOO!" Tuffnut catcalled. "I don't want no princess story!" He flopped back on his bed and plugged his ears.

Ruffnut threw her pillow at him, hitting him square in the head. "You ruined my beginning! It's not a princess story! And give that back."

Tuffnut smirked and stuffed Ruffnut's pillow under his head. "You aren't getting it back."

Ruffnut huffed. "Whatever. Now, as I was saying..." Her voice dropped again.

"Once upon a time, there was this hotel in a small town. It was a cute little innocent bed and breakfast. That is, until a little girl was killed in a hallway. No one could figure out how she died, and everyone was sad, but eventually went on with life.

"Until one night. One fateful night, a few guests were taking the elevator up to the thirteenth floor."

Astrid snorted before she could stop herself.

Ruffnut shot her a glare. "Are you going to listen or not?"

Astrid waved a hand. "Sorry, but isn't the thirteenth floor a little cliché?"

"No! The thirteenth floor is perfectly reasonable. Now back to the story!" The light in the fireplace grew dimmer as Ruffnut began yet again. "And when the group got to the thirteen floor..."

 _A/N: Even though I don't celebrate Halloween (I prefer national Hide in the Basement and Hope No One Rings the Doorbell Day), happy such day. A week and a half early, because I shant be posting anything next week. Please review! I love questions. I might not answer them, but I love them._

 _curry-llama: Wait and see. Wait and see._

 _TimPlazasta: I'll see what I can do to make it have a happy ending. Or not, if I'm in a contrary mood, which as winter comes is more often than not. Wait and see. And hope I don't write the ending in the winter. :)_


	3. Matchbox

**Matchbox**

Everyone leaned forward in expectation as Ruffnut paused dramatically. "The hallway was covered in red hand prints. They were on the wall, the floor, everywhere! And the worst part of it all? The ghost of the little girl appeared."

While Ruffnut went on describing the gory details of what the ghost looked like (which included chains, of all things!), Astrid left her sleeping bag and snuck up behind Snotlout. _Just_ when Ruffnut was describing the little girl's teeth and claws, she dropped her hands onto Snotlout's shoulders and hissed:

"It's the eyes of Mackenzie."

She got the spectacle she wanted. Snotlout screamed like a banshee, and Astrid dove out of the way before he could ram his elbow into her nose.

"Ha!" she hooted, picking herself up off the floor. "And thanks to Snotlout, we have an example of what the little girl's ghost's howl sounded like!"

"Good one, Astrid!" Ruffnut praised.

"I saw her the whole time!" Snotlout defended himself, pride obviously hurt.

"You have eyes in the back of your head?" Tuffnut asked.

"No! Yes!" Snotlout pulled his hair. "I knew it was coming!"

"Really?" Astrid drawled, back on her sleeping bag. She propped herself up with her elbows. "Is that why your scream was so authentic?"

"That wasn't a scream, it was a...a manly shout of terror!"

"Yeah, right. And I'm Odin." Astrid flopped back down and rubbed her eyes. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to sleep."

"But we didn't find any cold spots or weird marks on mirrors!" Ruffnut cried, disappointed.

"That's not such of a bad thing," Tuffnut pointed out, popping a last fig into his mouth. He zipped up the fig bag.

"You can't get scared if you're asleep. Think of the bragging rights," Astrid reminded them.

Snotlout only sniffed and buried himself into his sleeping bag until only his black mop of hair was visible. Ruffnut and Tuffnut followed suit, Ruffnut having to make due without her pillow since Tuffnut flat out refused to give it back.

Astrid waited ten minutes to make sure they were all asleep. When the tossings and turnings morphed into mumbles and snores, she quietly unzipped her backpack to pull out her exclusive supply of snacks, since Snotlout had let her expectations down.

Nutella never tasted so good, and Astrid remorsefully licked her spoon after the container was emptied. Since a sugar high was never a good thing before bed, she forwent the M & M's and pulled out a peanut bar to munch on. She was halfway through it when things began to happen.

The fire, which had been at a moderate blaze when the others had gone to bed, puttered and then died. Astrid hadn't taken stock of what condition the windows were in when they had entered the house, but now she noticed the cracks and missing panels that littered the glass. These absences allowed a sharp wind to seep in causing whistles that sounded much like nails grinding against a chalkboard.

Astrid swallowed the rest of the bar, which went down her throat like a rock. She felt around with her hand for the flashlight Ruffnut had given her. When her hands closed around the hard plastic, relief filled her. She had a light and a weapon. She waited, tense, for a few seconds, and then relaxed, laughing at herself. It was just the wind! The wind had blown the fire out.

Flipping on the flashlight, she picked her way across the "campground" to the fireplace to rejuvenate the flames, careful not to wake the twins or Snotlout. She picked up the matches Tuffnut had dropped when his pants caught on fire. Placing her flashlight under her arm, she pulled one out and struck it on the red phosphorous strip.

Nothing happened. Astrid tried again. When the match still didn't work, she threw it into the fireplace and grabbed another one from the matchbox.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as "doing something over and over again and expecting different results". By all means, Astrid should have been insane. She went through ninety percent of the matchbox, and not a single match sprang to life with a flame.

 _It was just like Tuffnut to buy a bum box_ , Astrid thought with disgust, throwing the rest into the fireplace. She would just have to do without a fire. It would probably burn down the house if they left one going all night, anyhow. She returned to her sleeping bag and zipped up the sides, falling asleep almost instantly.

She awoke with a jerk. Something had disturbed her sleep, although she couldn't determine what. The time must have been really late or early in the morning as it was still dark, but Astrid didn't have a watch on her. The house had quieted down, and now felt like an eerie shell.

 _"_ _Ssssssstrid."_

The whispered sound rushed through the room, long and drawn out. Astrid flipped onto her back, wide awake.

 _"_ _Sssssstrid."_

So the wind had picked up, she reasoned. The room was void of any cold current. Astrid's eyes flicked over to the twins and Snotlout. They were all asleep, unaware of the ghostly sound.

 _"_ _Asssssstrid."_

A freezing cold feeling washed over Astrid, like all the warmth had been sucked out of the room and she would never be warm again. Goosebumps littered her arms. She was in the middle of the coldest spot on earth, and heat was a foreign thing that would never be hers. She was out of energy like Tuffnut's matchbox. Her body temperature would eventually fall below ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit and her body would dry out. She would die alone without any one knowing.

The cold passed, putting an end to the preclude, and Astrid took a huge breath in relief. What was going on? She pulled her blanket up to her chin and waited for anything to happen. The minutes dragged by, and Astrid would have given her left arm to have a fire. That horrible feeling was gone, but she still wanted heat. A nice hot bath sounded good. Ruffnut's story must have creeped her more than she had thought. Thinking of all things warm, like deserts, Astrid slowly fell asleep again.

…

"Rise and shine! Your matron commands that you awake!"

"GERROF ME!"

"Keep it down!" Astrid groaned.

"I said get off me, Ruffnut!"

"You're the one who took my pillow!"

"Anybody seen my comb? It's gone missing!"

"Pipe it down!" Astrid muttered again, turning over and putting her pillow over her head. Wasn't it too early for shenanigans?

"We survived!" Ruffnut cheered, yanking the pillow off Astrid's head. "We survived a whole night! A whole twelve hours!"

"Woo hoo!" Tuffnut cheered, waving his toothbrush around in the air. "This calls for a celebratory fig!"

"I really, _really_ need my comb! Anybody know where it is?" Snotlout asked.

Astrid finally opened her eyes. Sunlight now filled the room, banishing the creepiness from the night before. The ugly cable-knit curtains were drawn back, cheering up everything.

"What time is it?" Astrid asked, rubbing her eyes.

"It's eight in the morning! Can't you see the sunshine?" Ruffnut pointed at the window.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I can." Astrid was beginning to believe the world was in a conspiracy against her. She needed her sleep!

"ANYBODY SEEN MY COMB?"

"NO!" they all yelled at Snotlout.

"I've got to text everybody!" Ruffnut chirped. "The kids at school are going to be _so_ jealous. We made it longer here than anybody in the history of Berk!"

Astrid shivered slightly, remembering how she had spent the night. "Did any of you guys wake up last night feeling kind of weird?"

"Weird? How?" Ruffnut asked, beginning to roll up her sleeping bag. "Hey, Tuffnut! You might want to start packing up if we want to make it to our cousins' soccer game."

"I don't know." Astrid dragged herself out of her sleeping bag. "Maybe it was a tad cold?"

Ruffnut laughed. "No disrespect, Astrid, but are you telling me cold in Berk is weird?"

"Yeah, you're right." Astrid shrugged off her worries. Berk was cold eleven months out of the year.

"I need my comb," Snotlout whined. "Does anyone have one I can borrow? Astrid?"

"Do I _look_ like a beauty supply shop?" Astrid snapped.

"No," he purred, "but you sure do look beautiful!" If looks could kill, Snotlout would have been six feet under and Astrid would have been on trial for murder.

"Hey!" Tuffnut suddenly exclaimed. "Have any of you seen my socks?"

"Your socks?" Astrid began to try to tie her sleeping bag back up with the broken straps. "Why would I know where they are?"

"Well, they've gone missing. Ruffnut, did you take them?"

"Why would I take them? They're pink!" Ruffnut wrinkled her nose in disgust, as if her brother had suggested she lick the floor.

Tuffnut shook her head condescendingly. "As I've said before, your closet..."

"Let's not go down that road," Astrid warned, finally managing to tease a knot together.

"Hey!" Snotlout cried. "My chocolate's missing!"

Astrid gasped. " _You had chocolate this whole time?!"_

Snotlout instantly realized his mistake. "No! Of course not!"

"You excluded us from _chocolate?"_ From Ruffnut's tone of voice, one would have guessed that he had just kicked her dog.

Astrid made a mental note to hide her licked-clean Nutella container.

"My car keys are missing!" Ruffnut exclaimed, going through her bag and temporarily distracting everyone from Snotlout. "Just great! How am I going to drive? Are you missing anything, Astrid?"

Astrid picked up her backpack and dug around inside with her hands. "No...wait! My shoes!" She peeked inside. The extra pair of shoes she had packed were gone.

Ruffnut put her hands on her hips and gave everyone in the room the evil eye. "All right, whodunit?"

"Wasn't me."

"I didn't do it."

"Not I!"

"Maybe a raccoon? They like to collect things," Astrid hesitantly suggested. She had been the last one to go to sleep, but she hadn't seen anything.

"A raccoon unzipped our bags, took our possessions, and zipped the bags back up again?" Tuffnut asked skeptically. "They don't have opposable thumbs! I can't find my socks anywhere and I've searched all over the place!"

All of them stood in a triangle, eyeing each other suspiciously.

"Did you-" Ruffnut and Astrid started at the same time.

"No!" Tuffnut and Snotlout chorused. "Did you two-"

"No!"

They all remained in their formation, glaring at each other, before Astrid broke the silence. "I don't know about you guys, but I have stuff to do. We can sort this out later at school."

"Fine," Snotlout muttered. He shouldered his backpack. "See you guys later." He stalked out of the front door and slammed it shut behind him, causing plaster to rain down from the ceiling.

The twins and Astrid glowered distrustfully at each other, none of them wanting to make the first move. Astrid was more tenacious than the twins, and they ended up exiting first, throwing scowls over their shoulders. Instead of leaving right after them, Astrid surveyed the room, trying to make some reason out of what had happened. She was almost tempted to go up the stairs and peek into the last room in the hallway, but she didn't have the time. Sighing, she cast one glance over her shoulder as she exited the "haunted" house.

Her dirt-coated bike was alone and waiting for her out on the lane. She slung her sleeping bag and backpack onto the rack and hopped on.

As she pedaled away, her mind wandered back to the boy who had died. Was his ghost indeed haunting the house? Arcane occurrences _had_ occupied their trip.

No, it was impossible. Ghosts weren't real, and the mansion was just a mansion. They had accomplished their goal of staying twelve hours together in the house. Astrid started whistling, putting more effort into pedaling away from the house – and its ghosts.

 _A/N: Hello! Things are a bit busy over where I am due to NaNoWriMo. Word count is killing me. Whoever thought it was a good idea to write 50k in one month?! The same month that Thanksgiving is in?! I don't do anything else and this is insane. Anybody else on schedule? Just crossed the halfway mark!_

 _Anyone like riddles? Here's one: A teacher has thirty students, but only two pupils. How is that possible?_

 _First person to guess it correctly (without looking it up) gets a mention along with my bemoanings of the world._

 _: Yes, the story Ruffnut tells does tie in a teeny weeny bit. Hiccup doesn't come until a little later on. I'm glad you like it! :)_


	4. Top the Forest

**Top the Forest**

Lockers banged shut, water fountains were employed, syllabi were used as paper airplanes: a typical school day at Berk High School. Astrid was among the throng of students who were slamming their lockers shut, a symptom showing the frustration of a rotten day of school. Her homeroom teacher had decided to pull a pop quiz, someone had spilled their lunch all over her, and a headache was brewing behind her temples, so she wasn't exactly thrilled when she saw Ruffnut rushing towards her.

"Astrid! Hoff!" Ruffnut babbled, words barely coherent. Her face was a knot of anxiety.

"Oh, so now you're speaking to me?" Astrid sniped, dumping her school textbooks into her backpack. "Not afraid I'm going to steal your car keys?"

"I found those! You have to- you just gotta-" Ruffnut waved her phone around in the air angrily.

"Yes?" Astrid arched an eyebrow, stashing her backpack on the floor and redoing her ponytail. "I have to what?"

Ruffnut answered by shoving the phone under Astrid's nose. "Our...they...record...topped!" Her syntax was completely out of symmetry.

"WHAT?" Astrid roughly yanked the phone from Ruffnut's hands. A couple of kids from their school had filmed a time lapse video documenting a whole fourteen hours in the ghost house. "No way!"

"Yes, way," someone sneered, bumping into Ruffnut. That "someone" was Alvin, member of the Berk High School's second popular crowd. "Sad we beat your puny record?"

"There's more where that came from," Viggo, his copilot of the plane _Stupid Comebacks,_ cackled.

"Keep speaking and your nose will end up where your ears outta be," Astrid threatened, cracking her knuckles. "Want to stick around to see where that is?"

Astrid was known for her uppercut. Throwing last taunts over their shoulders, Alvin and Viggo shoved Ruffnut out of the way during their exit.

"What are we going to do?" Ruffnut wailed, banging her head up against a nearby locker. "I already told everybody that no one could beat us! I'll never be able to show my face in school _ever_ _again."_

"Quit being a drama queen." Astrid started walking towards the school's exit, the gateway to freedom. She was ready for a weekend with no school, no homework, and no Alvin and Viggo.

Ruffnut trotted after her. "But what are we going to do? I sent texts out to everybody! I look like a royal idiot."

"That's because you act like one." Astrid squared her shoulders and pushed through the doors. "We're just going to have to go back. And instead of just doing fifteen hours, we're going to stay there a whole day."

"A whole day?"

"Yep. Twenty-four hours."

…

Astrid was not looking forward to a whole twenty-four hours with Snotlout. Her pride, however, dictated that their group set a concrete record, so she plotted their campout with Ruffnut. They were to meet at the mansion at five p.m. on Friday evening and stay until the twenty-four hours record was accomplished. They cleared their calendars, packed food, and bought Snotlout a lifetime supply of combs; they were prepared.

Astrid, nonetheless, was not ready for the sight she was met with when she pedaled over the last hill before she reached the mansion.

Over the week, a whole forest had sprung up over the deserted soil that had surrounded the house. Trees of every kind lined the grass path, and undergrowth made it impossible to get to the intended destination. Astrid nearly crashed into a pine tree as she stared in wonder at all of it. The twins were waiting for her at the end of the road.

"Did you guys see all of this?" Astrid called before she even reached them.

"What?" Ruffnut leaned her bike up against a tree. "See all what?"

"Are you blind?" Astrid hopped off her bike. "The forest. It wasn't here last Friday!"

"The forest was always here, Astrid," Tuffnut smirked. "Are you sure that you aren't the one who's blind?"

"No!" Astrid insisted. "I'm positive! There was no forest here last week!" She wildly gestured back at the woodland.

"Yes, there was," Tuffnut retaliated.

Astrid chewed on her lip, looking around for something to prove she was right. "Aha!" She seized upon her bike. "If there wasn't any dirt around, how come my bike is coated with the stuff? Huh?"

Ruffnut rolled her eyes. "You won that dirt bike race on Thursday, Astrid. Remember? Creamed Snotlout and made him cry?"

"Then how do you explain the forest?" Astrid glared at her. "I'm not going mad."

"It was here before!"

"Fine!" Astrid exploded. "We'll see who's right when Snotlout gets here." There was no way Snotlout's opinion would coincide with theirs. She leaned up against a walnut tree by the path and crossed her arms. She must have hit it too hard because a walnut fell from a top branch, picked up velocity, and bonked her on the head. She, not wanting to seem like a wimp in front of the twins, simply rubbed it off.

"Hard-headed Hofferson!" Ruffnut joked, earning herself a glare.

Snotlout arrived four minutes early from their appointed hour. He screeched to a stop, his bike breaks letting out a horribly non-symphonic screech. Astrid plugged her ears and grimaced.

"Snotlout!" Tuffnut waved his arms before Snotlout had alighted from his ride. "Was there a forest here the last time we came?"

Snotlout took a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and classically snapped them on. "Of course not."

"Told you so!" Ruffnut and Tuffnut synchronized the dab motion and followed it up with a high five.

"Did someone think there was a forest here before?"

"We should get inside," Astrid interrupted, "and set everything up. We have exactly two minutes to get inside the house." Even Snotlout broke into a trot to get up the front steps. No one stopped to goggle at the front door. Since they had spent one night in the house, it had lost its outside magic and mystery. To them, it was just plain, rotting wood.

"Home, sweet home," Ruffnut sang, dumping her bag on the floor. "We should really bring some couches here and add some new curtains to brighten up the place."

"Yeah, right," Astrid scoffed. "You'd need woolen tapestries to cover up the ugliness of those windows." The house creaked in protest at her statement.

"I bet you'll be a really great homemaker," Snotlout praised. "You'll find the perfect curtains when you're my wife." Snotlout found the perfect uppercut, and he didn't even have to get married.

"So, we brought webcam equipment," Tuffnut explained as Snotlout moaned from the ground. "We can set it up on the mantelpiece and record the whole thing." He pulled the device out of his bag and began setting it up as Ruffnut and Astrid began unrolling the sleeping bags.

Astrid kicked a soda can that Viggo or Alvin had probably left to the side. It skittered off, and some liquid sloshed out.

"This time, I came prepared." Ruffnut dug around in her bag. "Since we're going to be here much longer than before, I packed my phone and bluetooth stereo so we can listen to music." Ruffnut's backpack was considerably more stuffed than it had been the last time.

Astrid wandered over to the row of shields on the wall. She particularly liked one with a dragon on it. "I hear dragons symbolize power," Astrid mused.

"What else would anybody put on a shield?" Snotlout questioned, fully recovered. "Ducks?"

"And that's my cue!" Ruffnut adopted an announcer's voice. "Ladies and... well, I can't say gentlemen...I present to you...

"The Duck Song!"

Music started from the speaker. _"A duck walked up to a lemonade stand and he said to the man running the stand, 'Hey! (Bum bum bum)Got any grapes?'"_

Snotlout howled along, matching the sound of a beginner's orchestra during tuning time.

To get him to be quiet, Astrid asked, "Hey, did you bring the food this time, Snotlout?"

"You _did_ bring chocolate this time, right?" Tuffnut asked.

"Of course I did," Snotlout answered smoothly.

While Snotlout searched for the alleged chocolate, Astrid's mind wandered back to the room upstairs. Was the door still locked? Had Viggo and Alvin gone into it? What if they had vandalized it? She could certainly see them doing such an act. She needed to make sure the room was okay.

"I told you, I brought chocolate!"

"Prove it! I wanna see chocolate with my own two eyes! I DON'T THINK YOU HAVE IT!"

"WELL, PROVE OTHERWISE!"

 _"_ _'I'll glue you to a tree and leave you there all day, stuck.'"_

Astrid got to her feet. "Hey, guys, I'm just going to peek around upstairs for a bit. I'll be right back."

"-AND YOU CAN JUST SEND ME A POSTCARD FROM THE GRAVE, YOU FRAUD!"

 _"_ _And he waddled away, waddle, waddle, waddle. And he waddled away, waddle, waddle, waddle..."_

Astrid jogged up the stairs, leaving the blaring Duck Song and the arguing friends behind. She didn't take the time to admire the staircase or the photographs on the wall. She was a girl on a mission. Astrid tried the doorknob carefully, not really sure if she was expecting it to be locked or not. Unsealed, it lazily swung open. Astrid peaked inside. The room was just as it had been before.

 _"_ _WELL, YOU CAN JUST WADDLE TO THE NEAREST PRESCHOOL, YOU IDIOT. YO, ASTRID!"_ someone from bellow called.

"YEAH?" Astrid yelled back, withdrawing her head from the room. She cocked her head, waiting for a reply. She shrugged when none came. If they weren't going to bother with calling her again, she wasn't going to go down to see what they wanted. She wasn't their referee. She peeked into the room again, but it wasn't the same. The atmosphere was off, and the...

The dust was gone. On her previous escapade, the grimy powder had veneered all of the furniture, floor, and window. In the present, the room was spotless, as if a maid had just made a thorough sweep, vanquishing cobwebs with mighty strokes of her mop and making the dirt wish it had never come into sorry existence. A white glove test would not do justice to its cleanliness.

Astrid ran her hand along the old desk. Nothing came off onto her skin except a splinter or two, which she gripped with her fingernails and yanked out. The splinters made Astrid feel remotely better. The desk hadn't changed, just its level of cleanliness. Viggo and Alvin most likely had cleaned the bedroom as a prank to any future thrill seekers.

 _"_ _A duck walked up to a lemonade stand..."_

"Very funny," Astrid said, turning around to the door. "You can't scare me..." Of course, no one was at the door. Astrid marched over to the hallway. "RUFFNUT?"

"I'M SICK OF HEARING YOUR SORRY EXCUSES FOR COMEBACKS!" Snotlout screamed.

"I NEVER SAID ANYTHING!" Ruffnut screeched back. "WHAT YOU SAID WASN'T WORTHY OF ONE." Things were really starting to get out of hand.

 _"_ _No, like I said before,"_ an eerie voice, that wasn't Snotlout's or the twins', sang.

Astrid began an immediate search for a hidden bluetooth device, opening and slamming drawers and tearing the sheets off the bed in her haste as the reedy voice continued to sing the song. Annoying lyrics turned into a haunting mockery of song writing fatuousness. Whilst Astrid ransacked the room, the song grew louder. Without warning, the voice seeped in from the hallway.

Abandoning the search, she spun around, fully ready to confront whoever was out there. No one stepped through the door, but a shadow fluttered teasingly alongside the threshold, then vanished. Astrid rushed to the door, her hands gripping the wood. She was just in time to see a blurry shape dart around a corner in the hallway, disappearing into an unexplored region of the house.

Well, no person taunted a Hofferson and got away with it. Without a second thought, Astrid gave chase.

 _A/N: I absolutely hate the dab, but it seemed like something the twins would do. NaNoWriMo is over! Congratulations if you won it and good work if you were ever so close! I'm going to not be posting on this story for December, but watch out for a short four chapter thing I'm doing called_ How to Rob Your Bank.

 _Dutch Observer answered the previous chapter's riddle correctly by saying, "The teacher has two pupils"._

 _This week's riddle: What age is a man in his fifth prime?_

 _First person who guesses the answer correctly gets a mention in the next chapter. Have at it!_

 _~Rider_


	5. Melody of Horror

**Melody of Horror**

On the track, Astrid Hofferson was to be feared. She put other sprinters in the dust when she was in the running. They cowered whenever she crouched down at the start and matched her fingers up to the line. She made Usain Bolt look like an invalid. She'd won dozens of track titles through blood, sweat, but definitely no tears.

Despite all of the previously listed attributes, Astrid could not catch up with the tenor-singing ghost. She sped down hallways and tripped over faded ratty rugs in pursuit of him, but could see no more than the elusive shadow that was forever out of her reach.

Astrid was incensed. After what felt like the twelfth time of falling on her face, she gave up and steamed on the floor of the music room. She glared at the ebony Bösendorfer grand piano as if it had personally offended her. After it obviously did nothing, she went over to inspect the sheet music that had been left on the music rack.

Since gossip spread around Berk like a wildfire, she would never admit to anyone that she was actually pretty decent at playing the piano. Decent, that is, for someone who practiced incognito. The sheet music's yellow paper crumbled when Astrid repositioned it, so she let her hands poke at the white keys and scrunched up her nose as she tried to remember the last song she had mastered.

"Aha," she murmured to herself while her fingers found their places. She hit a low F and C note chord and winced. The last owner had been mightily negligent. The notes were wildly out of tune and made running a fork across a porcelain plate sound pleasant. Despite the neglect, Astrid plowed on and played the next few notes. Hopefully the twins would think a ghost was warming up its ancient fingers and be too afraid to investigate.

Horribly out-of-tune strains of the song "This is Berk" were dragged from the piano as Astrid pounded the keys, determined to play the song all the way out if it killed her. "This is Berk" was the impromptu anthem of Berk, played at every football game and social event since no one could remember.

Astrid felt the cold before she felt the presence. The gelid seeped into the room and solidified into a shape behind her, interest in what she was going oozing from him. Astrid whipped around, stopping the song in the middle, but whatever had been behind her disappeared along with the iciness. Warily, Astrid resumed the song, humming a little under her breath.

Gradually, like a shy squirrel, he came back, creeping up behind her. Astrid turned around again, her fingers ceasing in the middle of an intense section of the song, but again she was too slow.

"I know you're there," she accused. "You can't scare me that easily, so come about and face me like a Viking." Maybe the song was drawing him out. When the song stopped, so did his approach.

Trying to remember where she had ended, she started up the mighty restrains again, the old inner workings of the piano protesting her pounding of the keys with squeaky groans.

Her playing was far from immaculate, but the ghost seemed to like the upbeat melody and rapid tempo, for the ice flooded back into the room. Astrid shivered before she could stop herself. The cold made her fingers numb and clumsy. They faltered for a second before Astrid forced them to pick up the pace.

The ghost drew nearer and nearer. Astrid gritted her teeth and bit her tongue to keep herself from turning around. She was a Hofferson! Hoffersons faced things in the face, not the back! After a particularly deep chord, Astrid found herself violently wrenched away from the piano by an unseen and inexplicable force. One second, she was pressing on the keys, the next she was facing the opposite wall with a premonition that she should _not_ turn around.

Whilst Astrid debated whether or not she should listen to that premonition, the ghost began his own concert. Crackling came from the piano and it snapped into tune. Pure, round notes floated up from the bridge and soundboard. Astrid peeked over her shoulder a tiny bit, making sure her eyes never fell on the player.

The piano, previously dusty and worn down, much like the downstairs banister, shone like a pure black midnight. It was glossy, elegant, and sleek as if it had been delivered to the house that very hour. Astrid quickly snapped her head back around to the ugly wallpaper.

The ghost's choice of a song was one Astrid recognized, "For the Dancing and the Dreaming". Being a happy romantic song, she had never bothered to learn it. The style in which the ghost played it, however, was anything but happy.

He sucked out all of the major chords, replacing them with haunted minors. The song slowed and he drew out the melody of the song to an immobilizing cry that wailed through the air, a mockingbird's strain. Astrid's heart welled in sorrow, even though she had nothing to be sorry about.

She could bear it no longer. Fists clenched, she whirled around, reading to level flat that taunting figure who dared to make her feel despondent. The playing cut off and the room turned warm again. Astrid quickly whirled around, hoping that he would return. He didn't, but voices sounded in the room, from a distance of many years.

 _"_ _Dad? Dad! What are you doing?"_

 _"_ _I have no choice!"_

 _"_ _Dad!"_

 _Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad._ The word, filled with a pleading Astrid couldn't understand, echoed around the room over and over again. The piano's keys rose up and down, though no one was at the bench to operate the musical machine. The ghost's song returned, menacing and burning slow, being pounded from the piano.

 _"_ _Dad."_

 _"_ _Dad?"_

 _"_ _Dad."_ Astrid backed away from the wall as the childish voice emerged from it. She felt behind her for a weapon for defense of any kind and her hands found a rickety, wrought iron music stand with crafted metal leaves. She bared it before her.

"For the Dancing and the Dreaming" morphed into a melody of horror. As Astrid watched, one red hand print appeared on the middle of the opposite wall, followed by another, and another, and another. Hordes of the paint-dripping prints popped up on the wall like a snow flurry, covering up the flowers on the wallpaper. A smell and taste of iron hit Astrid's tongue and nose. That was not paint!

"It's blood," she whispered aloud in horror. She backed up, tripping over more rugs, tables, and music stands until her hand that wasn't holding her weapon of choice hit the wall, covered in a sticky substance. Astrid held her hand up to her face. Blood dripped off of it.

 _"_ _I have no choice!"_

 _"_ _Dad!"_

Astrid dropped the music stand and bolted out the door, not getting very far. As if she had anemia, her limbs felt like lead, a situation impossible for someone as active and physically fit as she. Overcome suddenly, she dropped herself to the ground before the weariness could and her eyes shut without asking her.

…

Astrid jerked awake, breathing heavily. Slowly, cautiously, she held her hand up in front of her face. The sticky blood was gone. Her clothes weren't stained a dark red. It had all been a dream.

"A dream," she murmured, leaning her head against the wall and cracking a weak, mirthless smile. "It was all a dream." None of it had happened. _Of course._ Bloody hand prints didn't magically appear on walls. Ruffnut's ghost story had inadvertently influenced the dream. The singing, the chase, the haunting music, it was all an illusion of her sleep. Before Astrid could get to her feet and hurry back downstairs to see how far the argument had progressed in her absence and if they needed to dig a grave for Snotlout or not, they came up to her.

"Yo, Astrid!" Ruffnut called. A GoPro was strapped to her head in a ridiculous helmet. They were letting no chance for anyone to claim they set up the cameras, pretended to explore, and then ran from the house.

"What are you doooing?" Tuffnut asked.

"I'm showing the wall love," Astrid sassed. "I thought it looked lonely, so I decided to give it some attention." She patted the wall. The wallpaper stuck to her fingers and ripped from the wall when she pulled her hand away. Wrinkling her nose, she wiped her hand on the carpet, which didn't do any good.

"How about showing me some love?" Snotlout cooed. "When you're my wife-"

"When you're dead!" Astrid snapped, getting to her feet and advancing towards Snotlout. She shook her fist threateningly. "One of these days."

"SOOOOOO," Ruffnut interrupted, putting herself between the advancing Astrid and the cowering Snotlout. "The _real_ reason we came to find you after I _creamed_ Snotlout in our argument-"

"No, _I_ creamed Snotlout in our argument," Tuffnut corrected. "Let's give credit where credit is due."

"You were rather inactive in the argument," Ruffnut shot back, "until I promised you to have first dibs on the cookies when we get home!"

 _"_ _We don't have cookies at home!"_

Astrid sighed impatiently. "What's the real reason?"

"Oh. Yes." Ruffnut cleared her throat, grinning. "It's easier to just show you!" She grabbed Astrid's arm and tugged her down the hallway, Snotlout and Tuffnut behind them, elbowing each other to not be the last one in the procession.

Ruffnut chattered away as she dragged Astrid down the stairs. "We might have been messing around in the fireplace and all of the sudden when I – I mean, _Tuffnut –_ when _Tuffnut_ shoved Snotlout into the mantelpiece – it's wood, of course, but there was a loose piece of limestone underneath the corner of the whole thing – and the piece of rock thingy came out. There was a secret compartment in the fireplace! How cool is that?"

"I'd have to see for myself." Astrid's curiosity was piked. Ruffnut no longer had to pull her. "Was there anything in it?" Secret compartments tended to hold secrets. Berk's grapevines thrived on such things.

"A _box._ We put in back in. We want you to do the honors since we couldn't decide which one of us should."

Now they were standing in front of the fireplace, the mantelpiece, and the sad portrait of the family. "Now show me where this secret compartment is," Astrid commanded.

Snotlout marched up grandly to the fireplace and eased one of the stones from its spot. It came out with a loud, high-pitched scraping sound.

"Drum roll, please," Ruffnut requested.

Astrid rolled her eyes, but complied with her and Tuffnut, slapping her hands on her jeans and making a thudding noise that suited Ruffnut's fancy. The box was removed.

It was rectangular in shape and plain, with gold plating on its corners. Unlike the wood in the rest of the house, it had remained untouched by the years.

"I can't believe no one else has found this before us," Astrid said as it was passed ceremoniously to her. "Shouldn't someone have by now?" She cradled it carefully in her hands.

"Maybe we're just lucky," Ruffnut suggested, taking off her ridiculous hat and placing it on the mantel. She shook her tiny braids out.

"Huh." Astrid personally didn't believe in luck, but she looked for a way to get into the mysterious box. She slid her fingernail under the crack between the lid and the body of the box and cranked a little. The lid slowly eased up as if it was run by a system. When the lid was fully open, an inner mechanism encased in glass sprang to life and began to play a song.

Astrid dropped the music box like it was a piece of hot biscuit as the strains of "For the Dancing and the Dreaming" hit the air, a melody of absolute horror.

 _A/N: Luke payne guessed the riddle right first. Congratulations. Thank you for all of your reviews, favorites and follows._

 _Rider_


	6. Lasers, Bars, and Insecticide

**Lasers, Bars, and Insecticide**

"Hey! Careful!" Ruffnut scolded. "You don't know if that's valuable or not." She rushed to pick up the unharmed music box on the ground.

Astrid stared at the box, bug-eyed. "That thing!"

"So?" Tuffnut said, disappointed. "It's just a dumb old music box. No explosives, nothing."

"How much do you think it's worth on Ebay or Amazon?," Ruffnut wondered, exhilarated at the find. "People will pay a lot for pretty, old-looking things if they think it's an antique."

"It's not as gorgeous as Astrid!" Snotlout interjected.

A gleam came to Ruffnut's eye. "How does this sound? ' _Opulent, priceless...'"_

Astrid's thoughts were still reeling over the music box, distracting her from pummeling Snotlout into the dirt for his comment. How? How had she dreamed the exact song that was playing? It was physically, _mentally_ impossible for her brain to... wait... Astrid laughed at herself. A stupid, weird coincidence was what it was. "For the Dancing and the Dreaming" was a song with heaps of publicity in Berk. She had recognized it herself. _Of course_ someone would have put it in a music box at some point. The song was a romantic one, for crying out loud.

"Think I could get a hundred bucks for this?" Ruffnut waved the music box under Astrid's nose, making her go cross-eyed.

Astrid pushed Ruffnut's hand away. "At least. Are we going to explore some more or what?" She reinserted the brick, closing the secret compartment.

"I don't want to do any more exploring. I'm getting hungry," Snotlout whined. "It's almost seven. We should eat."

"Eat what?" Tuffnut shot at him. "That imaginary chocolate you keep insisting you have?"

"I told you I have chocolate!" Snotlout marched over to his bag. He rummaged through it and help up an empty wrapper.

"More like _had_ ," Tuffnut scoffed. "You need to see an optician! Oh, wait! But you can't see!"

Snotlout misheard the comment. "I'M NOT AN OCTOPUS!"

Astrid clucked her tongue, seizing the chance to get back at Snotlout for all of the comments he'd been making about her. "Well, with the way your hair is gelled, you look like you have eight legs on the top of your head. What do you use, cement?"

This earned a howl from Snotlout, who directed his anger towards Tuffnut instead of the instigator of the insult. The resulting brawl was only broken up when Ruffnut messed around with her bags and brought out a mini hand-held cooler. "Voila!" she cried. "Dinner is served, _mon chef!"_

Astrid frowned. "Uh, isn't that a little small?"

"Small?" Ruffnut looked down at the cooler, confused.

"Yes, small. We're staying here until tomorrow evening. Food for the four of us can't possible fit in that tiny thing." Riding her bike through the forest again all the way back to town to grab something for them to eat was not an option.

"I told you that wasn't big enough," Tuffnut accused.

"And I told you it would be fine. Ruffnut always has a plan, for she brought...energy bars!" Ruffnut declared grandly, spreading her arms wide in expectation of the grand applause she was sure to reap.

Everyone stared at her, uncomprehending.

"Energy bars!" Ruffnut repeated, throwing her arms wide again.

Snotlout blinked.

Ruffnut rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. These are the best energy bars on the planet." She took a handful out and threw one each to the members of the group.

Snotlout's and Tuffnut's both hit them square in the nose, but Astrid caught hers. The label read "INSECTICIDE BAR CO." One could only imagine where the bars had been made, and nothing that came to mind was appetizing.

Ruffnut explained, "These things are so packed with protein that you only have to eat one and it's the equivalent of a meal."

"This small thing isn't going to fill me up," Snotlout complained.

"Nothing would fill up that bottomless pit of yours," Astrid grumbled. "This tiny thing couldn't possibly fill someone up, even if they didn't have a stomach the size of Snotlout's."

"Who cares?!" Tuffnut was already desperately ripping the wrapper off of his bar with the enthusiasm of a man who hadn't eaten a full meal for months. The bar was shoved down his throat in an equal manner. One could visibly see the bulge of the bar travel down his esophagus before it was gone and in his stomach. It was well known no one could beat Tuffnut Thorsen in a food-eating contest.

Everyone watched him expectantly with baited breath. His eyes bugged out for a second and rolled around in their sockets before settling out. He gave them a thumbs up. "Tastes great! Can I have another one?"

"Did you even taste that?" Astrid questioned in disbelief.

Suddenly, Tuffnut turned very green.

"Not so good." Ruffnut watched her brother is avid fascination. "Do you think he'll explode? We haven't blown up anyone – ahem, thing in a while!"

"I don't feel too good," Tuffnut moaned, darkening a shade.

"Neither do I." Snotlout sniffed. "A tooth broke off of my comb!" Astrid was tempted to ask him if he meant the comb on his head, since he was such a bantam rooster, but Tuffnut slightly warranted more concern than Snotlout warranted a sarcastic remark.

"Do you need, I don't know, a bucket or something to chuck in?" she asked Tuffnut, whacking him on the back and nearly sending him sprawling to the ground.

"Did you know that there are tons of possible ways to say _throw up?"_ Ruffnut informed them. "There's _driving the porcelain bus, toss your cookies, do a technicolor yawn-"_

"TOO MUCH INFORMATION!" Snotlout and Astrid yelled at once. Tuffnut had yet to toss his cookies, but was now as dark as well-watered grass. Suddenly, he slumped forward onto the ground. Astrid rushed to catch him and flipped him over to his back. She didn't know if that would help any with whatever was going on down in his stomach.

Ruffnut assumed her brother was dead without waiting for an official verdict. "TUFFNUT, MY TWIN!" she yelled. "Speak to me!"

Silence. Astrid thought Ruffnut was being over dramatic at first, as she was wont to normally be, but now she wasn't so sure. Tuffnut wasn't moving and his face hadn't turned back to its normal color. Uncharacteristically, he was being awfully still and quiet. Maybe the energy bar had done some greater damage. They should have read all of the packaging before consuming it!

Bringing relief to all of them, Tuffnut cracked open an eye. "Why should I speak to you, Ruffnut? I passed by you on my way down, and you didn't say nothin'!"

"He's all right," Astrid breathed. She questioned if they could have gotten him back to Berk on time had it been a serious situation.

"All right?" Tuffnut protested. "My stomach feels like a rock!"

"You know who rocks?" Snotlout purred, uninterested now that it was apparent that no one was in immediate danger of playing their cards. "Astrid. She's so-" With a well-aimed uppercut from Astrid, Snotlout joined Tuffnut on the floor.

"Vermin," Astrid muttered.

"Do you need to go home?" Ruffnut asked her brother. "Or are you going to man up?"

Tuffnut groaned, sitting up and clutching his stomach. "The possum has fallen on the queen!"

"Okay!" Ruffnut pumped a fist in the air. "Long live the possum!" She caught Astrid's weird look. "He's staying, in other words."

"You got that from 'the possum has fallen on the queen'?" Astrid asked.

"Twin telekinesis."

"Telepathy," Astrid corrected. Spying a dusty old vase on a side table, she fetched it and handed it to Tuffnut in case his stomach decided to release his latest meal. He held it beneath his chin gratefully.

"I need a couch," he moaned, his face turning white, then blue. Astrid grabbed him underneath one arm and Ruffnut got the other. They half dragged, half helped him to one of the rotting, demolished couches in the living room. Despite his skinniness, he weighed a lot.

"Should we move Snotlout?" Ruffnut hesitantly asked. Snotlout was still face down on the floor.

"The carpet's not doing him any harm," Astrid said in a reasonable tone.

"The couch wouldn't do him any harm either," Ruffnut pointed out. "If anything, the opposite. It's pretty nasty."

"I like the way you think." At the count of three, each of the girls grabbed one of Snotlout's shoulders. At the _minimum,_ Snotlout was at least thirty pounds heavier than Tuffnut. A particularly nasty clod of gelled hair found its way into Astrid's mouth as they dragged him. She spat it out. "Does he ever bathe?"

Snotlout's sneakers dug into the carpet, running against the nap. Two dark ditches and snags were created. Unceremoniously, they dumped him face first onto the remains of the couch.

"Girl's night out!" Ruffnut crowed, the lugging of incapacitated boys completed.

"I'm still awake," Tuffnut pointed out.

"That can be fixed," Astrid assured him. "How could we have a girl's night out? All we have is bars that bloat your stomach and a bunch of GoPros." Suddenly, their planned regime for their extended stay felt inadequate. Their video documentary would show twenty-four hours of teenagers knocked out cold or sitting around bored. Doing hopscotch wouldn't earn them publicity, either.

"I thought about that," Ruffnut said, rummaging around in her backpack. She held up a roll of duct tape.

Tuffnut made a sound akin to a whimper. "That's not fair! I want to mess around with duct tape!"

Astrid turned immediately suspicious. "What did you bring duct tape for?" Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. Duct tape and the twins combined usually ended up in a trip to the principal's office for a long lecture that didn't do any good.

Ruffnut shook her head sagely. "A wise man named Earl Dibbles, Jr. once said: 'You need only two tools in life: WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and should, use WD-40. If it moved and shouldn't, use duct tape.' Those are wise words, Astrid."

Astrid leveled her stare at Ruffnut. "Tell me you didn't bring WD-40."

"Okay. I didn't," Ruffnut chirped cheerily.

"Liar. What could you possibly use WD-40 on around here?" Horrible visions crossed Astrid's mind.

"You never know. Better to be safe than sorry."

"What are we going to use duct tape for besides tying up Snotlout and Tuffnut?" Astrid asked.

"I OBJECT!" Tuffnut called from the couch, still as green as a lawn in spring. "No one is tying me up! If anything, I shall be doing the tying!"

"So, what are we doing with the duct tape?" Astrid asked again forcefully, getting annoyed that the question was getting ignored.

Ruffnut huffed. "A laser maze, of course!"

"A laser maze," Astrid repeated. "Excuse me if you think I'm an idiot, but what on Freya's green earth is _that_?"

"The funnest thing to do on earth when you're stuck indoors, besides snowboarding down the basement stairs with a platter of cheese balanced on your head! Here, I'll show you!" Ruffnut grabbed Astrid's arm and pulled her to the nearest hallway.

"I'll just stay here with my vase! Save me some duct tape for later!" Tuffnut called after them. Snotlout opted to say nothing, seeing as how he was still unconscious.

When they reached the head of the hallway, Ruffnut ordered Astrid, "Stay here." She ran down to the other end and started cutting out long strips of duct tape, using her teeth instead of scissors. Ruffnut's dentist would not be happy when the twins' mother wrestled them into examination chairs at their next visit to the dental office.

Ruffnut worked her way to Astrid, tacking the sections of duct tape across the hall way in every weird angle possible. One could not walk down it without being tangled in dozens of tape strips. By the time she reached Astrid, the roll of duct tape was almost depleted.

"Now what?"'

"Now, we ride," Ruffnut intoned mischievously.

It was Astrid's turn to huff. "No, I meant, what do we do? It looks like you just created a trap for your brother."

"You try to walk down the hallway without getting any of the sticky part of the duck tape on you," Ruffnut explained. "You win if you still have all the hair on your head by the end."

"This doesn't sound like fun," Astrid complained. In fact, it sounded downright childish.

"You don't have do do it. _Unless you're scared,"_ Ruffnut taunted. "A two year old could do it!" From the looks of it, a sand mite couldn't do it. "I bet you a milkshake you can't make it to the end without getting stuck."

A Hofferson never backed down from a challenge. Astrid's lips curled into a smirk, defying Ruffnut's statement. "You're on!"

A/N: _Thank you for pointing out the mistake, CdnChrgr._


	7. A Thief of Time

**A Thief of Time**

Astrid made it safely through the laser maze without even touching a strip of duct tape. However, the game came to a sudden end with a loud ripping noise and an exclamation of "CRICKETS!" from Ruffnut. The blonde's love for her hair apparently matched her love for thrill. Astrid had to comfort the weeping Ruffnut over the small bald patch on the back of her skull for the next half hour.

"You can brush the rest of your hair over it," Astrid insisted.

"It won't be the same!" Ruffnut wailed. "I didn't even mean to fall! It was like I was pushed!"

While Astrid couldn't personally see why Ruffnut felt the need to water the currently moldy floorboards in the house, she patted her friend on the back. "Everyone trips every once in a while. I bet you can talk Tuffnut into a crazy hat contest," she suggested. "The person to wear a coonskin cap the longest buys the other the largest ice cream cone in Berk."

Instantly, Ruffnut's tears dried up. "You think so?"

"Absolutely." Astrid eyed the lock of Ruffnut's hair dangling from the strip of duck tape. "Now let's get this down before someone else loses their hair."

"I dunno," Ruffnut snickered. "Wouldn't Snotlout look a tad handsomer without all those greasy dreadlocks?"

" _Nothing_ could improve his looks," Astrid said vehemently, ripping the first piece of duck tape off the wall. Half of the wallpaper came off with it. When all the pieces were gathered, Astrid smashed the yucky mess into a ball and threw it into a corner of the hallway.

Ruffnut yawned. "I don't know about you, but I'm sleepy."

"We can hit the sack for the night. It's late enough." Astrid caught Ruffnut's yawn. "Stop that." They headed back to the main area without another word. Leaving the boys on the couches, as both of them were still unconscious, Ruffnut and Astrid unrolled their sleeping bags and settled down. Within minutes, they left the land of the living.

…

Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Snotlout, and Astrid all had the same dream and never even realized it.

In the dream, they were standing on a wide grassy hill. The wind blew, and the sun sent fiery reds, pinks, and oranges into the sky as it set below the horizon. The night smelled of spring, and they breathed in the fresh scent. They were alive, and they felt like they could touch the sky. Nothing could stop them from flying.

A dark shadow crept up in the corner of their vision. They turned around, but nothing was there. Thinking it a trick of the dying night, they turned back to look at the sunset.

It happened again and again. The shadow never morphed into anything solid, but came nearer and nearer until it was right behind them, breathing down their necks.

The ground turned to dirt, crisscrossed with lines of nonsense, with neither rhyme nor reason. A discarded stick lay to the side. The shadow engulfed them, and they yelled as only as children of the Vikings could: without fear or trembling, but with reckless abandon.

The scene melted, burned by fire. Each one of them awoke, not remembering anything of shadows or sticks or rhyme or reason.

…

At seven that evening in the old mansion, twenty-four hours since they had set foot through the front door, victory was theirs. After a dramatic countdown, Ruffnut and Tuffnut linked arms and Irish jigged around the living room, whooping and hollering. Snotlout attempted to link arms with Astrid. He unsuccessful.

"We need to get home and post this!" Ruffnut exclaimed. "It will definitely get more likes than Alvin and Viggo's video, and it might even top our skateboarding-off-the-top-of-the-basketball-hoop clip!"

"Nothing could beat the platypus-venom-extraction video!" Tuffnut protested.

Shoving her camping supplies into her backpack, Astrid shook her head. "I don't even want to know."

"I could-" Snotlout began.

Astrid leveled a stare at him. "Care to repeat last night's date with the floor?" She smiled smugly when he had nothing in reply to that. "I thought so."

Ruffnut hopped from foot to foot. "Do you mind if Tuffnut and I rush home? Our mother's going to be suspicious if we don't turn up soon, and we've got to post this as soon as possible!"

"I need to buy some combs," Snotlout stated.

"Go ahead." Astrid zipped up her pack. "I think all of us are ready to leave anyway." She wouldn't be sad to say goodbye to the mansion for the final time. It was creepy and really only good for exercising dares.

The twins whirled like tornadoes out the front door. Snotlout attempted to linger behind them, but Astrid shoved him out the door as well. The setting sun cast bright colors into the sky, honoring the birth of the moon. A beautiful night was falling on Berk. Had she seen another night like this recently? The thought tingled at the back of her mind. Something about a dream...

Casting one last glance at the house, Astrid shut the door and hopped down the steps two at a time.

Her exit would have been a whole lot more disturbing had she noticed that the forest was gone, replaced by the original desert. She might not have left so soon, either, if she had heard the ghost's parting comment.

 _"_ _I never had a choice, dear Assssstrid."_

…

As Astrid was reading a magazine in the evening of the next day, Ruffnut called her.

"What do you want?" Astrid answered suspiciously. Since they saw each other every day at school, Ruffnut only called Astrid when she wanted something.

 _"_ _Can't I call my best friend to see how she's doing?"_ Ruffnut asked in mock offense.

"No." Astrid tossed the magazine aside and pulled her feet up onto her bed.

 _"_ _Great, 'cause I didn't."_ Ruffnut dropped her voice down to a whisper. _"Can I drop by your place in five minutes?"_

Astrid played with the tip of her braid, narrowing her eyes. "What for?"

" _My mother baked lasagna!"_

Ruffnut's announcement did not have its desired earth-shattering effect. "So? My mother bakes lasagna all the time. Ados to yours because she can cook better than you. Really, Ruffnut, that's no reason for you to come over here at eight tonight."

Ruffnut huffed. _"She only bakes lasagna when she's going to do a room check."_

"A room check," Astrid repeated. "What is this, Alcatraz?"

 _"_ _She's going to raid our room and throw out all the fireworks, duck tape, and superglue!"_ Ruffnut's voice rose in hysterics.

"You act like that's a bad thing."

" _It is! Poor Tuffnut's been excavating the petrified dirty clothes under his bed for half an hour!_ "

Astrid sighed, switching the phone to her other ear. "What does Tuffnut's dirty laundry problem have to do with you coming over? I'm not taking your superglue."

A pause on the line. _"You remember the music box?"_

How could she ever forget it? "Of course. What about it? You didn't superglue it shut, did you?"

 _"_ _Of course not! I took it home with me to see how much I could sell it for on Ebay. If my mom finds it, she'll think I stole it. I just need you to hide it for me for one night. Pleeeease?"_

"Fine, but you'll owe me big later."

One would have thought the fate of the free world depended on her answer. _"Oh, thank you, Astrid!"_ Ruffnut wept. " _I won't forget this!"_

Astrid grinned wickedly, even though Ruffnut couldn't see her. "Oh, I'll make sure of that."

 _"_ _I'll be over in five minutes,"_ Ruffnut said, hanging up the phone.

Astrid tossed her cellphone in the same direction as the magazine. True to her word, Ruffnut peddled up Astrid's driveway on her bike in five minutes flat. Not really wanting to get up from her comfy seat to open the door, Astrid waited for the doorbell to ring, but the shrill sound never came.

Instead, someone rapped on her window. Astrid hurriedly evacuated her bed and threw open the curtains. Ruffnut grinned at her, her hands otherwise occupied.

Astrid pushed the window pane up. "My bedroom is on the second floor!" she scolded. "You could have killed yourself."

"Hello to you, too!" Ruffnut climbed into Astrid's bedroom. "Nice drain pipe you have, by the way, although it could use a new cut of paint so I can slide up it faster."

Astrid rolled her eyes in disbelief. "You could have used the front door like every other human being."

"It's only fun if you get a scar out of it." Ruffnut parted a cut section of her shirt to reveal a jagged scratch on her shoulder.

"Ruffnut!" Astrid scolded again. "I hope you're tetanus vaccine is up to date!"

"Relax, Astrid! You're worse than my mother! I'll throw a band-aid on it when I get home."

"That needs more than a band-aid." Astrid rubbed her forehead with her knuckles. "So where's that dumb music box?"

Having already forgotten her entire reason for shimmying up Astrid's drainpipe in the first place, Ruffnut snapped her fingers. "Knew I forgot something!" She rummaged in her pocket and shoved the music box into Astrid's hands. "Thanks for doing this."

"Yep. Don't forget the band-aid!" Astrid called after Ruffnut, who exited Astrid's bedroom in the same manner as she had arrived. Astrid held the music box in cupped hands, searching for somewhere to stash it. She settled on her sock drawer and carefully hid the music box under a pair of blue wool socks, not daring to open the lid and let the music escape.

That night, Astrid hopped under her covers. Nights in the city of Berk, no matter how hot it was during the day, were always freezing. Idly, she mused over Ruffnut and Tuffnut's room check before easily slipping off to sleep.

When she awoke, everything was completely dark. Her mind, clear of fogginess, flew a mile a minute, careening from one thought to another.

Her curtains flapped in the breeze. Her window was open. The skin at the back of Astrid's neck prickled. She distinctly remembered shutting _and_ locking it after Ruffnut made her exit, which meant...someone was in her bedroom.

Astrid threw off her covers, flipping on her bedside lamp with one hand to catch whomever in the spotlight, and ferreting blindly with her other hand around for her hairbrush.

Much like her running skills, the hairbrush of Astrid Hofferson was to be feared. Crafted of solid enamel and gold plating, it required hefty hand muscles to brush one's hair with it. Overall, no one would wish a blow on the head by it to their greatest enemy.

She brandished the brush before her, but no one was in the room. Astrid surveyed the area suspiciously without unlocking her elbow joints. When no one introduced themselves, she carefully padded across her room to her closet doors. She violently kicked one open with her toes.

Absolutely nothing. Astrid lowered the hairbrush gradually. _Impossible!_ Her bedroom door was closed, all of her drawers were shut, and no ladder prongs rested on her windowsill. No burglar was in the house! The back of Astrid's scalp tingled again. The feeling in the air was off.

The wind outside picked up, sending her curtains dancing again. The pressure in the room dropped and the cold returned.

"No, it's impossible," Astrid whispered, eyes wide, at the same time a dying voice accused, _"_ You _thief."_

"I didn't steal anything!" Astrid cried, recognizing the voice. He'd spoken, actually _spoken_ to her! Not some disconnected voice, like in the mansion, but a sound that would register on a decibel scale.

"Where is it?!" The wind blew harshly through her room again. How could she fight wind with a hair brush?

"I don't have whatever it is you're looking for!" She really _hadn't_ taken anything. Inexplicable terror filled her. She really _hadn't._ How could she explain that to a ghost?

"Where?" he cried. If Astrid squinted, she could make out a white splash of a figure hunting under her bed. "She's gone!"

As much as Astrid would have loved to run to her parents' bedroom to get her dad _and_ his shotgun, she couldn't. "Who's she?" Invisible lead blocks weighed her feet down.

His voice filled with anguish. "She's gone! Her song. Gone, gone, gone!" With each repetition of "gone" it grew weaker. "You thief!" _You thief!_ The voice slid away from reality.

Astrid could move again. Forgetting the hairbrush, she dove across her room to her dresser and yanked open her sock drawer. She clawed her way through the pairs until she found Ruffnut's stupid music box. She flung it across the room and it crashed into the wall. "Take it!"

"For the Dancing and the Dreaming" played from the broken music box. The second the white ghost touched the music box, he partially solidified. A familiar boy, with red hair and –

He disappeared before Astrid could puzzle through where she had seen him before. A scream seared through her ears and she fell into a deep sleep.

 _A/N: And I finally updated! This thing might be off hiatus now! Thanks for all of your patience._

 _Helloooo *waves at Elvish Quill if she reads this*_

 _Rider_


	8. Alarmed, Yet?

_A/N: Behold, the update! :D Thanks to PirateElizaSparrow, who beta'd this._

 _Please leave a review to tell me what you think! It feeds my Monster of a Muse and keeps the Grinch on my Shoulder happy. (Not, I'm not insane, I'm just a writer.)_

 **Alarmed, Yet?**

Alarm bells went off in Astrid's head and she shot upright. A second passed before she realized that her alarm clock was actually blowing out her eardrums and another second passed before she realized that she would have to move to turn it off.

"All right, already," she groaned, flailing one arm around until she accidentally smacked the alarm clock off her night stand and silence once again reigned in her bedroom.

It was too late. She'd woken up. Groaning, she pushed her covers off and rubbed her eyes with her fingers until she could open her eyelids.

"ASTRID, IF YOU DON'T GET OUT OF BED, YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE!" her mom hollered, displaying the prowess of the Hofferson family's voices.

"I'm coming!" Astrid shouted back. She hurled herself out of bed and towards her door. Once she got going in the morning, there was no stopping her.

A mug of coffee awaited her at the kitchen table, wafts of steam swirling up from the inky liquid. Hoffersons drank their coffee black and refused to have it any other way. Astrid sank into her customary chair after pouring herself a bowl of cereal and guzzled the coffee down. Throwing her dishes into the dishwasher when she was finished, Astrid thundered up the stairs. She had just finished twisting her hair into a braid and throwing all of her school papers into her backpack when she noticed a dent in the wall and a tiny brass gear on the floor.

Astrid sank onto her bed, staring at them with an open mouth. How could she have forgotten what had happened the previous night?

"ASTRID!" her mother yelled again from below. "IF YOU DON'T HURRY UP, I'LL CALL THE TWINS TO COME OVER HERE AND GET YOU!"

Shaking her head, Astrid snagged her backpack and scooped up the gear before racing down the stairs. "Love you, Mom!" she called out as she slammed the front door to her house. She got her bike going down the road before she started to think of what had happened.

The gear had an explanation, she reasoned. Ruffnut had dropped it climbing in the window. The dent had also been caused by Ruffnut's less-than-graceful exit. Astrid nodded to herself. Yes, that explained everything nicely.

"Hey, Hoff!" Tuffnut appeared as if summoned by the thought of his twin. His bike zoomed by her. In true Tuffnut fashion, he was standing up on the pedals. Ruffnut also joined the group, zipping in circles around Astrid.

"Hey!" Astrid made no move to match their stunts.

"Are you ready to be the third famous person in Berk High School?" Ruffnut crowed, pumping her hands in the air and momentarily sending her bike careering to the side. She and Tuffnut sported matching coonskin caps.

"Our moment of fame has arrived!" Tuffnut rejoiced, turning his bike around to pedal directly at them. "And Snotlout didn't even wake up to welcome it!"

Astrid interrupted. "How'd the room check go?"

"Oh! There wasn't a room check," Ruffnut said. "Our uncle Eddie was actually coming for dinner and lasagna is his favorite dish. He even gave me and Tuffnut fake pairs of handcuffs! How awesome is that?!"

"Not so awesome for the person you're going to be handcuffing." Astrid swerved to avoid a head-on collision with Tuffnut. "And I warn you, your first target better not be me, or else you'll regret ever laying eyes on your uncle Eddie."

"You're no fun!" The twins continued to pull harrowing stunts on their bikes all the way to school until Astrid pumped her pedals to race past them into the school parking lot. She weaved her way in between cars, slid to a stop, and locked her bike up in the rack. Snotlout chose that moment to appear.

"Good morning, gorgeous," he cooed. "OWWWWWWW!"

Astrid dropped his arm and left him whimpering.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut were bursting, hopping from foot to foot in unison and wringing their hands. "Come on!" Ruffnut urged. "Before the bell rings!"

The quartet pushed through the school doors. Although they weren't swamped with hordes of cheers and exultation as the twins had imagined, they were not ignored.

"Hey!" Gustav, a freshman, ran up to them. "I watched your video! It was amazing! I don't see how you survived!"

"Yes, yes, we were fantastic. Here's my autograph." Snotlout grabbed Gustav's arm, whipped out a sharpie, and pulled the cap off with his teeth. He scrawled his name fancily on Gustav's arm. "I sign arms for free!"

The group pushed its way to the classroom. Almost everyone, except for Alvin and Viggo, wanted to talk to them. Questions floated around.

"Weren't you scared?"

"Did you see any ghosts?"

"Did Astrid really knock you unconscious, Snotlout?"

Snotlout ignored the last question. Mrs. Nelson, their homeroom teacher, had to raise her voice to get them to be quiet, and she was one of the quietest-voiced Vikings Astrid had ever met in her life. In between periods, Ruffnut and Tuffnut strolled through their phones, reading off with glee all of the hit statistics that were piling up on YouTube.

It was official: They were stars.

Astrid was doodling in her biology textbook and counting down the seconds until the school bell rang (1256, to be exact) when the intercom buzzed and the principal's secretary's voice crackled to life.

 _"_ _Ruffnut Thorsen, Tuffnut Thorsen, Snotlout Jorgenson, and Astrid Hofferson to the principal's office, please."_ She repeated the command before the intercom turned off. Whispers flew around the room. Astrid's name was _rarely_ connected with the twin's names in a call to the principal's office. Well, whatever he wanted, it couldn't be bad. Astrid Hofferson had never gotten into trouble at school in her life.

Astrid sat in the waiting room a good ten minutes, and the twins and Snotlout never showed up. Eventually, the secretary just told Astrid to go into the office without them. Astrid pushed open the door.

"Come in, Miss Hofferson. Have a seat." Principal Drago's tone was neither welcoming nor icy.

Astrid obeyed, keeping on the edge of the chair, which felt like it was designed to be the most uncomfortable in the world. Astrid's eyes flicked to the rows of college football uniforms in frames hung up on the wall, and then to the personal trophies.

"You are wondering why you are here." Drago began, his great chest rumbling with his own bass voice. He was the only principal who could pull off dreadlocks and still intimidate students.

Astrid nodded.

Drago messed with his computer mouse and clicked on something. "You were a participant in the day-long ghost camp out?" he asked.

Astrid nodded again. "Yes, I was."

Dragon steepled his fingers. "Trespassing is illegal." He was never one to waste words.

"Everyone does it," Astrid told him. "Viggo and Alvin camped out too, recently. It's practically a rite of passage for all teens in Berk!"

"Due to a lack of respect for private property among the youth of Berk, I am suspending you, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut for three weeks."

"Three weeks!" Astrid exploded. "You can't do that! I'm the captain of the track team!"

"Effective immediately. You may bike home. I will call your mother to inform her, and if you put up any more argument, it will be four weeks." Drago dismissed her.

Astrid stood. "I didn't do anything wrong! You can't punish me for something hundreds of other people have done!"

"That is _all,_ Miss Hofferson."

Astrid stormed out of the principal's office and out of the school. How could she have been... _suspended?!_ The word sounded sour in her _mind._ For crying out loud, she hadn't done anything wrong! She wrenched her bike out of the rack, bending the rusty lock on it.

 _Suspended._ Principal Drago was probably speaking with her mother at the moment. Her mother would be furious, for it was unheard of for a _Hofferson_ to get suspended.

 _Suspended._ Her bike's gears protested as she pounded her feet into the pedals. Angrily, she pushed herself harder, although she had no idea why she wanted to get home to sure punishment. For a while, the only sound she heard was the scratch of bike tires on pavement. She was concentrating so hard that she was two streets past her house before she realized the error.

With hot, angry trepidation, she threw her bike onto the lawn, breaking the sprinkler and sending spurts of water into her face. Wiping the water out of her eyes and in an even worse mood, she stomped up the brick steps to her house and tripped over an ornamental cactus pot. She yanked the thorns out of her skin, prickling tears threatening to escape her eyes from the sting. Thank goodness the water from the sprinklers camouflaged them. The key to the house, of course, snapped when she accidentally tried to turn it the wrong way and she had to dig around the thorny rosebushes that she had kicked the remains of the cactus pot into.

Her arm came out with the key, thorn scratches, and a green garden snake attached to it. The poor snake survived with only a concussion when Astrid sent it hurdling into the brick side of her house. When the key worked, silence greeted her instead of the stern tone of her mother's voice.

Astrid hit her forehead with a fist, propping her elbow up on the palm of her other hand. Her mother had a job and wouldn't be home in the middle of the day.

"Why me?" she groaned to the air. "Why not Snotlout?" Snotlout was probably in the bathroom, preening like a peacock in front of the mirror, instead of being chewed out by the principal like he deserved. She dragged her heavy backpack up the stairs, the books thumping on each individual step.

After the first ten minutes of moping and worrying about what her mother was going to say when she got home, Astrid discovered a beautiful thing.

A revolutionary, terrifying thing.

But a beautiful thing, nonetheless.

 _If she didn't have school for three weeks, she could do whatever she wanted._

Warranted, she would be punished accordingly, but past that, she would have unlimited free time! This thought entertained Astrid for a few moments before she realized that her parents' version of punishment was scrubbing all the floors in the house with only a piper cleaner. Viking ancestors came with Viking-tough consequences. Worse thing yet: She would get holes in her pants, and the last time she'd tired to darn anything, she'd sewed herself to her bed.

Moodiness filled her. "The whole thing is unjust!" she exclaimed, slamming her fist on her desk, where she had taken up position. Her pens jumped and rattled to new bearings. Staring at the pens, an idea began to form itself.

She quickly pulled out her laptop and booted it up. Fingers flying madly, she found a website that distinguished and labeled all plots of land in the city of Berk. From it, she could tell who _really_ owned Raven's Mansion and whether or not she had actually trespassed. A couple of minutes later, she found what she was looking for.

Raven's Mansion wasn't owned by anyone, not even the public or government. No deed title had been given to anyone _._

In fact, no taxes had been paid on the land in a long time. If anyone was in trouble, it was the city of Berk for not noticing the infraction. How could a whole _mansion_ escape the town's notice? Well, she didn't care about that part and the school certainly wouldn't, but it would save her from three weeks of embarrassment and ridicule. And scrubbing all the floors in the house with a pipe cleaner.

"Aha!" she cried, jabbing her cursor on the print button twice. She wouldn't have to mend her jeans from the holes sure to come from scrubbing! She would fight the suspension!

Eagerly, she scanned the papers she had printed out and set them carefully aside. She would show them to her mother when she returned from work. Astrid was no longer scared at what punishment would be coming. She had a _plan._


	9. Frozen in Time

_A/N: Guess who decided to update? (No, that's not true. I update this as soon as possible.) Thanks for all of your reviews on the last chapter, and let me know what you think about this one. There will be Hiccstrid!_

 **Frozen in Time**

Astrid, despite the brilliance of her research, did _not_ get to immediately return to school on Tuesday because the information she passed on had to be processed. The school informed her that the processing could take up the rest of the week. After Astrid cleaned all the bathrooms in the house, she couldn't figure out what to do with herself. Her mother kicked her out of the house for the day, saying she wouldn't have Astrid sitting in her bedroom, staring at the computer screen like a cow chewing its cud. With that, Astrid found herself out on the street with a dusty bike.

She could have visited Ruffnut and Tuffnut to see how they fared, but the Thorsen house was guaranteed to be an animal farm whenever the twins were at home, and who knew what condition it would be in with a visiting _uncle._ Astrid found her bike slowly wobbling towards the dirt road that led out of town and to the mansion. She didn't want to particularly _go_ there. Her bike tires just pointed in that direction as if the mansion was a huge magnet pulling her in.

Oddly, she noticed that the trees were gone, and now great stumps dotted the scenery like a giant wasteland. She shook her head, sending her braid flying over her shoulder. She didn't remember seeing any logging trucks driving through Berk, nor did any huge tire tracks litter the ground.

 _Weird._ Astrid made a mental note to ask her mother if anyone had cleared the land.

Astrid dropped her bike to the ground in front of the mansion and dust flew into her eyes. Coughing, she hurried up the steps to get out of the terrain, and nearly got her foot stuck in between the wooden boards of the mildewing steps.

She sat gingerly on the couch. And sat. And sat. What was she doing there anyway? After what felt like half an hour, she stood to leave. She got no farther than five feet away from the couch when it happened.

The temperature in the room dropped.

Dread writhed in Astrid's stomach. "This is rational," she told herself. "Berk's weather is wild."

All rationality fled when _he_ spoke. _You aren't supposed to be back, Assssstrid._ With the words, an inkling of "For the Dancing and the Dreaming" (what Astrid now thought of as the ghost's song) danced in the background, neutral, neither haunting nor happy.

"You can't tell me what I'm supposed to do," she immediately snapped back, before realizing that the ghost didn't exist, ergo she couldn't _be talking to it._ The ghost's song persisted in playing in the background.

Astrid closed her eyes and chanted aloud to herself. "It's not here, it doesn't exist. It's not here, it doesn't exist. It's not here, it doesn't exist. It's not here, it doesn't..." Her words trailed off as cold shot into her collarbone. Slowly, she cracked open an eyelid.

A pale, half-opaque hand held the music box gear in the air, suspended on its tether. Astrid had slipped it onto a leather string without thinking about it and wore it around her neck for safekeeping. Now, the ghost, without running away or shoving her away, held the gear, the leather growing taunter as he held it up to his speckled nose.

When the leather reached its max length, green eyes slowly revolved upwards. If they continued, they would soon meet hers.

Astrid resumed her chanting. "He can't exist. He can't exist. He can't exist."

"Why?" he asked curiously.

Astrid's heart froze. "I'm _dreaming."_

"Do you always dream when you're awake?" The tension in the leather grew as he pulled it closer to himself, those green eyes never fully turning up, and the freezing leather dug into Astrid's skin. She pulled away, only tightening the noose.

"Stop it! You're hurting me!" Astrid screamed, shoving him – anything that she could get her hands on – away from her. The gear fell back onto her sternum and she lunged for the door. She had to get out. She was dreaming. As soon as her feet hit the dirt outside, the spell of the house would be broken.

As had happened in the music room, her feet could not move as fast as she mentally commanded them to. They were trapped in a dream where a monster was slowly approaching her from behind. She could see out the door. While she watched, a leaf that was spinning through the air in a cool breeze, slowed and eventually stopped. It hung, crisp, green, fresh, in the middle of the sky. Astrid's feet propelled her forward, and she stared with wide eyes at it. Everything around her, including the activity of the atmosphere, had stopped.

She whipped around. He was gone. Not a trace that he ever existed remained with the exception of the gelid gear hanging around her neck.

"Hello?" she called. An imaginary breeze (for nothing was moving, not even the wind) stirred a scrap of paper, which Astrid bent down to collect from the ground. It read: _I'm Nobody. Who are you? Are you Nobody, too?_

Astrid threw it down in disgust. "Poetry?" she yelled. "Seriously? You trapped me here to read some stupid poem by Emily Dickinson? Let me go!"

Astrid stormed over to the center of the living room and sat down in a huff. She couldn't be stuck in Raven Mansion forever!

…

Without realizing that she fell asleep, Astrid awoke. Disoriented and groggy, she held her watch up to her blurred eyes to get a look at the time. Her normally precise electronic watch blinked gibberish nonsense.

"Ugh," Astrid groaned. She felt like a truck had slammed her from behind, although that wasn't the case. She glanced to the door of the mansion, which was closed. Oddly, the door's previously rotting wood, which hadn't been much of a barrier against the outside world, gleamed with fresh stain. Alarm growing, Astrid saw a matching padlock resting over the iron door knob.

"No!" She leaped to her feet and rushed over to it. With all of her might, she yanked on the chain, trying to wrench it from the door, but it held fast.

"TUFFNUT!" she yelled, thinking of one of the three people who could have locked her in. "THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" She pounded on the door with both fists. "I'm tired of you locking me into rooms!" After a interminable period of silence, she rushed to the window. Thick glass panes, which _used_ to be falling out and fogged up, blocked her in. She doubted that even if she found something to break them they would even crack in their current prestigious state.

Astrid paced like a caged tiger, feeling the urge to punch someone even though Snotlout wasn't there. Anxiously, she pulled on her braid. The skin at the nape of her neck stung, and she felt back there with her hand. Using a window as a mirror, she got a glimpse of the angry red skin around her neck from the leather rubbing against it.

"Oh," she whispered aloud. " _Oh."_ She backed away from the window, her mind running wild. Coming up up with an explanation for it became mandatory. There _had_ to be one. An explanation existed for the lock on the door. For why she kept falling asleep.

"Think, Astrid!" she commanded herself, resuming her pacing. She obviously wouldn't be getting out via the ground floor. Everything stood too solidly, so she was forced to turn to the next floor out the house, which was more exposed to the elements.

Purposefully, she marched for the staircase and tromped up the stairs. If she paid more attention, she would have noticed the restored condition of the _whole_ house, not only the first floor. She turned to the room she'd investigated before since she remembered that the window had been halfway knocked out. Whenever she opened the doorway, however, the bedroom was _filled_ with personal effects, and the window, in prime condition, let afternoon light filter in.

"You've got to be _kidding me!"_ Astrid screamed, having the urge to tear her hair out even more. Who spared the time to knock her out and pull such an elaborate prank?

 _No one but a ghost,_ a little voice inside her head taunted. Astrid haughtily ignored it, massaging a headache on her forehead with her thumbs.

…

To the twins, nothing was more exciting than getting suspended. While their mother did not approve of any such activities that kicked them out of school, Ruffnut and Tuffnut kept a count of how many times and for how long they were excused, trying to break their personal record from year to year.

Needless to say, when they found out that Principal Drago's suspension excused them from school for only three weeks, they were disappointed.

"Two more weeks, and we would have made a new personal best!" Ruffnut complained to Tuffnut, flopping down on the couch in their living room, which sported at least one fire extinguisher on every wall. (Their father didn't take any chances.)

Tuffnut, who was in the midst of carefully coating the soles of their mother's shoes with honey, replied, "But think off all the time we have to _prank people!"_ He triumphantly held the honey bear bottle in the air like the Statue of Liberty. "We don't have to worry about schoolwork for _three weeks!"_

Ruffnut snickered. "Not that we did in the first place."

"We should celebrate somehow." Tuffnut funneled off the honey flow into the last shoe. "I've got it!"

"Caulobacter crescentus bacteria?" Ruffnut asked, hopefully, shooting off the couch. "Tuffnut, you shouldn't have! Gimme some of that!"

"Nope. It's better than that. I think we should initiate Astrid somehow! She's acquired her first suspension!" Tuffnut slid his mother's shoe back to its proper place, positioning it just so to where no one could tell it had been moved.

"Terrific!" Ruffnut cried, grinning. "We'll take her down to the local drug store and make her drink ten cups of yaknog! And then we can go doorbell ditching!"

"Make it twelve cups!" Tuffnut whooped, jumping to his feet. "Get your running shoes on! Let's go find Astrid!"

…

Snotlout was bored, so bored that not even his bathroom vanity could keep him preoccupied more than a couple of hours. When he ran out of hair gel, he resorted to relaxing on his bed and snapping selfies from every angle. After he finished posting them on Instagram so that his two followers could soak in his beautiful features, he searched for something else to do.

He could not think of anything worth _actually_ moving himself. He needed his beauty rest. Just when he was going to give up and take a nap, his phone buzzed. He checked to see a text from Tuffnut.

 _Looking for Astrid. Know where she is? Want to come?_

Snotlout's whole day turned around. Why lounge around when Astrid could be fawning over him, praising his muscles and greased hair? Snotlout instantly texted Tuffnut back.

 _I'll be at your house in fifteen minutes._

…

He can't remember his own name. This thought scares him, before he forgets it over and over and over. He's sick of it. He _wants_ to remember what might have been, but everything around him pulls him away from reality.

The noises. The laughter. The destruction. His home, the name of which he can't remember, is being destroyed, stone by stone and beam by beam. Every time another foot crosses the threshold into his territory, he loses just a little bit more of his mind. He can't control himself at times and scares people. They call the house "haunted," but he can't understand why. The house has been his home for as long as he remembers – or doesn't remember – and why would that change just because someone declares something else?

The music box is in his hands. He strokes the lid, listening to the music inside through his fingers. The tune normally helps him to recall _her_ , the only one who cared, yet not today. The gear haunts his mind. The gear, the gear, the gear, the gear. It's below him. Gone. Another part of her. He's searched for it. The missing piece.

His mind is drifting away again, despite a moment of true clarity. He thought the girl below was different, but the more he notices and interacts with her, he becomes just like the others who ruin his home. Uncaring. Cruel. _Mean._

She, who searches about on another floor below him, yells something, and everything blurs. He _must_ make her _understand._ He loses control, and the house twists into the darker side.


	10. I Am

_A/N: Here's a long-awaited update! Thank you for being patient, and rest assured that more updates will now be coming weekly instead of twice a year! Please R &R if you enjoy it._

 **I Am**

Astrid, sitting in the hallway crisscross applesauce with her back to the wall, was at a loss. Every reasonable inch of her brain told her there had to be a clarification to everything that was happening to her, but the more and more that happened, the more and more the little voice told her that none existed.

Astrid _hated it_. She wasn't going crazy, was she? The sore on her neck told her that whatever happening to her was real. Was the really a ghost in Raven mansion? Could the rumors and make-believe actually be true and no one had seen it until now?

"You have to admit it," Astrid told herself. "There's a ghost living in this house."

Nothing happened. The earth didn't shake, and the ghost didn't pop up again. Life currently went on. Well, as much as it could with everything frozen. Astrid hadn't figured out that part yet.

Now what? She wondered. Time wasn't going to start itself again. What did she have to do to escape a supernatural being? She didn't know worth _beans_ about ghosts.

What did he want her to do? One minute, he threw her across the room and antisocially pounded on the piano, disappearing if she even turned to look over her shoulder. The next minute, he spoke in complete sentences and stood almost face to face with her. Why? Instead of harming the roots of her hair more, Astrid settled for cracking her knuckles and tried to think.

Before, when she entered the mansion, the ghost had gone ballistic, with haunting music and bloody hand prints on the wall. At the time, she'd been there for the challenge and he'd played games with her. Now, she had the gear to something precious that he cared for deeply.

Before her thoughts continued, the lamps which had been lighting up the house prior to Astrid's arrival flickered and drew her attention. Again, the flames inside the clear glass danced. As Astrid watched, they turned green from the top own. The house darkened. The eerie flames did nothing to chase away the growing powerful shadows.

Uneasiness gnawed its way into Astrid's stomach. She stood, feeling that something bad was going to happen in the house.

A primitive roar echoed from the first floor. A crash and a crack of wood followed, shacking the timbers of the house. Heavy, inhuman scraped and scratched on the staircase.

Luminous, electric orbs of eyes peered into the hallway. They were the eyes of a scaly black beast with ink black skin that reflected the green light from the lamps. _A dragon._

Astrid's heart quit about the same time she stopped breathing.

Slowly, the dragon crept towards her, its head tilted and a menacing, questioning look in its eyes. It did not move like a normal animal, but melted and slid in and out of the shadows, too rapidly towards her.

"Stay back," she warned, although the creature did not heed the words. "Stay back!" she repeated more loudly, yet it continued down its direct path.

Astrid, who didn't even think of running, grabbed the nearest lamp with her hands and yanked. Ripping wallpaper and wallboard away, it came off the wall. She hurled the light at the beast and when it hit the ground, it erupted into sparks. The dragon howled, but did not cease its attack.

Astrid turned and ran, stopping whenever she could to tear a light from the wall to hurl at it. Despite her efforts, it loomed behind her, ever inching closer, with scraping claws adored with sharp claws. It would not hesitate to kill her should those claws meet her skin.

Haphazardly, she threw herself into an open doorway and tripped over the threshold. Hot, steamy breath spilled over her and the scent of... fish... overpowered her nose. A dark, massive presence pressed down on her.

 _Death,_ it whispered.

 _I._

 _Am._

 _Death._

Her heart could not decide whether to stop or speed up. Her head pounded.

With a final, guttural roar in her ear, the dragon disappeared with a flash of lightning.

Astrid opted to lie where she was until her circulatory and respiratory levels calmed down to a rate that did not induce passing out. When they did, she opened her eyes.

A library, filled with many books, and a desk stood in the center of the etymology maze. Curiosity aroused, Astrid pushed herself over to investigate. It was very old-fashioned. A carpenter had once lovingly carved swirls into the legs and cross piece. A bejeweled letter opener proudly rested on a wooden block, next to one equally dazzling silver pen and a cracked monocle. Next to those, in the center of other normal old-fashioned desk paraphernalia, lay a blank piece of paper, upon which a brown leather notebook rested.

Astrid crossed to the other side of the desk. As she did so, her foot kicked a small object underneath the desk. Careful not to bang her head on the underside of the desk, she retrieved it and held it up to whatever light she could find.

A black notebook, it was, with a flame design etched into it. Eagerly, Astrid flipped to the first page (one could never learn too much about his or her enemy), but was shocked to discover that pages had either been torn out, burnt, or scribbled over, with strokes of mad fury and the blackest ink.

Astrid held what pages remained up close to her eyes and nose, trying to decipher any of the broken loops. The situation was hopeless. Despondent, Astrid flipped to the back of the whole thing and was rewarded with fresh, clean sheets that had never been touched. Well, never been touched except for one smack dab in the middle. A man's handwriting, the same bold and angry as the scribbled out mess.

 _Lies. All of it, lies!_

None of it explained anything, yet left her wondering: _What had happened?_

…

Earthquakes never happened in the city of Berk, nor any other natural disasters. A famous joke around the town went that all of the horrible names they passed down to their children scared calamities off, so when the ground rumbled, Astrid was taken by complete surprise. The first shake sent the ginormous tome in her hands, which she had been scouring for helpful information, dropping to the floor, and the next one caused her feet to trip over each other.

The light, which had returned at some point to the outside world, vanished. Simultaneously, a light drumming began on the roof, growing in dynamics. Astrid glanced up to the etched gypsum ceiling, even though she wasn't on the top floor and the rain couldn't possibly reach her. Since the earthquake was apparently over, Astrid bent over to pick up her dropped book. Just when her fingers brushed the leather cover, another shake gripped the ground and sent books flying off the library's shelves. One hard volume hit Astrid square in the back, causing her to fall over.

"Ow!" she protested as her hands and knees came into contact with the wooden floor. Why couldn't Vikings have invented carpet?

Lightning flashed through the window, and thunder rolled after it, playing a game of tag it would never win. Astrid groaned. A thunderstorm would surely hinder her from getting home with the dusty road. It would become a mudslide in minutes, if it hadn't already. Mind you, Astrid wasn't opposed to the idea of racing through the mud, but she was opposed from the idea of having to clean said mud off everything she owned.

Although no electricity was wired into the house, the lights quit, not even shining their eerie green. Astrid's fingers curled more tightly around the book she held. More lightning.

The skin on Astrid's arms stood up straight, she could feel it. More thunder boomed, rattling the window panes.

A faint blue light grew on the far side of the library. Distrustful after recent events (dragons did have a way of burning themselves into one's mind), Astrid did not go to check it out. Instead, she hid behind a shelf, keeping the heavy book with her in case she needed to whack someone – or something – over the head with it.

The light brightened every minute. Astrid bided her time, silently rocking back and forth on her heels in anticipation. Perhaps _Snotlout_ was carrying the light and she would be graced with the opportunity of bashing him on the head. It would serve him right for stalking her like the creepy person he was.

The storm rolled on as the light grew nearer and nearer to her. Astrid huffed with impatience. Snotlout was taking his own sweet time. Eventually, though not as soon as Astrid would have liked, Snotlout came within striking distance. Grinning deviously to herself, Astrid readied the book, stretched her arms, and WHAM!

The book hit Astrid's thigh, surely leaving a bruise, and its momentum sent it crashing to the floor. Astrid yelled at the pain, then bit her lip at the smart, turning her eyes to glare at Snotlout for his part in her bruise.

Snotlout, rather disappointingly, was not the cause of it. When Astrid's gaze of wrath fell upon its target, what it met shocked her.

The book had not hit its intended target simply because there was nothing to hit. What should have been solid flesh and bones was air and light. Blue, ghostly light, and blue ghostly...

Astrid screamed. Blue blood covered the chest of the figure, only a young, innocent, boy, before her. A transparent knife handle stuck out from his chest, stabbed through layers of armor. A splash of the life liquid marred the white pallor of his cheek. She recognized him from the portrait on the first floor. He was somewhat cute, Astrid thought, with his red hair and green eyes.

All thoughts of beauty vanished when he smiled. It was a grotesque, twisted smile that did not belong on the kind face that bared it.

The ghost spoke one word: _Asssstrid._

Astrid, too late, remembered that she was supposed to be running. Her feet stumbled away from _it –_ there was no way she was thinking of that blood-stained monster as a boy – and her body followed as fast as it could. She systematically ran into the bookshelves of the maze and had to ricochet herself off of them to keep going. Who had ever thought that making a maze out of books was a brilliant idea? It was completely impractical when one had to run away from scary supernatural beings that probably had her death on their agenda for the day.

Night. Paused-time sequence. Whatever.

She crashed into another bookshelf, upsetting the peculiar arrangement of old sagas. Dust momentarily caused her to choke on the air. She glanced over her shoulder as she cleared the air and ever sped forward. Where had the exit been? She couldn't find it anymore.

Frantically, she held out her hands until she bumped into the nearest wall and almost ran to find a door frame. Her hands connected with solid plaster and fancy filigree, but no door frame. Astrid's panic grew.

As if seizing on her panic, the blue light that illuminated the ghostly figure slowly drifted towards her from wherever it was in the library. Astrid squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to see any of the blood dripping down his chest. She shuddered at the thought, even though Vikings weren't afraid of a little blood.

 _It hadn't been_ a little _blood._

The knife had been coated with it. His armor had been coated with it. His _face_ even had some on it.

The tip of Astrid's fingers hit their quarry: a door frame. Astrid frantically felt around for the doorknob she so desperately needed and a grim smile took hold of her mouth when she found it. That smile melted when she twisted the knob.

The door was locked.

She was stuck in a library with a crazy, blood-stained ghost and no way of escape.


	11. The Beast and the Boy

**The Beast and the Boy**

There were quite a number of things that could have been better than being trapped in a library with an angry ghost. For one, she could be _burning alive_ while trapped in a library with an angry ghost. She could have been balancing on the edge of a cliff two inches wide while burning alive. So her position wasn't really that bad.

Sadly, not one of those possibilities crossed Astrid's mind as she wrenched on the door with all of her might, the doorknob eventually slipping out of her grasp was it collected sweat from her palm.

"For the thunder of Thor!" she cried, vexated, then realized that the sound would undoubtedly get the ghost to come more quickly towards her, exactly the opposite effect that she wanted.

 _Astrid,_ it sang as it wound its way towards her. The ghost's tone dropped a couple of years in pitch until it was a little boy's. _Why are you running from me, Astrid? Astrid!_

"You don't get to call my name!" Astrid shouted at it.

Suddenly, it was right behind her ear. _Or do I?_ It whispered, a frail, old man with clacking bones.

The room tilted, having nothing to do with Astrid's state of mind, and Astrid and the books slid towards the fall wall, to the windows that opened up to a world of a thundering storm. The winds howled as if Thor himself was whipping things up with Loki, and the Midgard serpent had decided to join the party.

Astrid was buried underneath book after book. One particularly thick volume hit her square in the stomach and left her gasping for breath when it didn't budge. Soon, another book hit her in the head and the last thing she saw was a crack of lightning.

…

Before Astrid's eyelids even fluttered, she was mad, for as she struggled to awake, she realized that she had fallen asleep. How many times had she fallen asleep in the mansion? Too many for her liking, whatever the total number was. She hated being asleep with a _ghost_ roaming about.

Sunlight pouring in through the window poked its way into her retinas. The next second, there was no sunlight, only the raging storm that had been. On and off, light a light switch, the two contrasting weathers traded places in the sky.

Astrid pushed a book off her stomach and scratched an itchy spot on her arm. Why was she not surprised that the sky outside could not make up its mind?

Wind whipped the side of the house, reminding Astrid that she was not alone in the house. Pushing more books off, she turned her head side to side and around, but did not spot the eerie blue light and the blood.

Astrid shuddered again at the thought of the sticky blood and wiped her hands on her jeans, as if some of it had gotten onto her.

When she did so, the desire to know the precise time overcame her. The leaf had frozen in the air. Did that mean time was moving in the mansion and not out in Berk? If she was trapped forever, would she age and then wake up to a world that hadn't moved? Or was time in Berk really moving, and she would go back to discover that everyone had died and left her alone?

Astrid slapped the ground. She just had to find a clock. She should have worn her watch.

"Come up!" she rallied herself. She pulled her body off the ground by latching onto a windowsill. The world tilted a little because she was not used to the...extreme weather happening. It was bewildering

Halfway to the door, Astrid remembered that it had been locked. Well, if the weather outside could change, she reasoned, so could a lock on a door. Her reasoning was rewarded.

The hallway was a breath of fresh spring air in a meadow to her face. She breathed it in, long and deep, and slammed the door behind her to make sure that none of the library's tainted air escaped. She was free. She could do whatever she wanted.

Purposefully, she thundered down the stairs, which took her heavy tramping without protest since they weren't old and rickety anymore. She hurried across the living room to the window. The shutters were shut with latches, but no lock secured them. With great difficulty, as they hadn't been oiled, Astrid pried them apart and swung the shutters open.

Sunlight hit her in the eyes, blinding her. Stormy darkness replaced it for five seconds before the sun came out again.

Astrid expected the cycle to continue and was pleasantly surprised when it did not and the sun remained at high-noon position.

She was more shocked, however, than pleasantly surprised when she saw three familiar silhouettes walking towards the house against the skyline. "SNOTLOUT?!" she yelled, pressing her face against the glass. Because of the barrier between them, none of the group appeared to hear her.

Astrid frantically searched for a way to open the window so she could get their attention. When she didn't immediately find one, she raced over to the front door to try its knob one more time, in case the ghost had decided to unlock the door. He hadn't.

Muttering insults about him under her breath, Astrid raced back to the window and banged on the panes with her fists. "HEY, SNOTLOUT! YOUR HAIR LOOKS GREAT TODAY!" she hollered, hoping a compliment would get his attention if nothing else did.

They were close enough now that she could see the white's of their eyes, and their proximity drove her mad. She could _hear_ them, for the love of Loki!

"Peanut butter would definitely float on top of grape juice," Ruffnut argued. "It's a lighter color!"

"But everybody knows that grapes are already part juice!" Tuffnut rejoined hotly.

"I forgot to bring hair gel!" Snotlout complained.

Astrid growled. "You're going to forget everything else when I bash you on the head!"

For a second, if looked as if they were going to walk right through the mansion. They didn't act like it was looming right in front of them. Astrid ground her teeth in frustration. She hated not being able to do anything!

"Come _on!"_ she screamed. "I'm. Right. Here!"

"-but peanuts caused bigger bruises when I dropped one on Fishlegs's head the other day!" Tuffnut argued.

"Yeah, right! That bruise was from my spitball!"

"Give credit where credit is due, dear sister!"

"I don't even have a credit card, so how do you expect me to charge it?!"

"Will you two quit yapping?" Snotlout complained. "Now that we're here, I want to find Astrid so we can go get those malts or whatever sugar confection you promised to buy me."

"Yes! Find me!" Astrid ran over to a window closer to the door and unbolted it. "I'm right here!"

" _You're_ the one who's talking," Ruffnut replied pithily before marching up to the door. Astrid backed her way and settled into position, arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

The doorknob rattled. "The dumb door is stuck," Snotlout complained. "I can't get it to open."

"So put some muscle into it!" Ruffnut coached. "You're the one who's always bragging about your muscles!"

"I'm not trying to _rip_ those muscles, Ruffnut!"

"Ladies, allow me!" Tuffnut interrupted. " _OW!"_

Astrid was going to go mad if they didn't learn how to open the door soon. The door knob jiggled some more and the door swung wide open. "It's about time!" Astrid cried.

"Wow!" Ruffnut exclaimed, completely ignoring an angry Astrid. "This place is just as beat up as it was before! If anything, the dust has increased! Hey, Tuffnut, do you think we could make a YouTube video doing the Dust Challenge? You know, like the Cinnamon Challenge, but using dust instead?"

"Yeah, baby!" The twins slapped hands.

"The dust is getting in my hair!"

Astrid watched in slack-jaw amazement as they walked right past her into the house. She was standing right in front of them, so how could they not see her?

"Astrid!" Ruffnut called. "Are you in here? Hey! We came to congratulate you on your first suspension!"

"O beautiful Valkyrie, come adore my visage!" Snotlout declared, striking a pose for a nonexistent audience.

"I'm right here," Astrid stormed as she stomped her foot, "but you're going to be in Helheim if you don't cut the game!" She marched up to Snotlout to give him what for, but he moved forward and passed right through her as if she was thin air. A cold shock ran through Astrid's body.

"Ha ha," she laughed nervously. "That's a good one. You can put it on YouTube if you tell me how you did it."

"Astrid!" Tuffnut hollered. "I don't think she's here."

"She probably went to the drug store already. We should go back to town and get away from all these cobwebs." Tuffnut moved towards Snotlout and passed through Astrid again. She tried to shove him away, but her fingers melted into his shirt and icy cold shot up her arms.

Astrid threw up her hands. "There aren't any cobwebs! The house looks like it was cleaned two hours ago!"

"Yes," Snotlout agreed. "I hear dust is bad for acne. I wouldn't want to ruin this beautiful countenance before Astrid has a chance to feast her eyes on it."

Helplessly, she watched as they all walked back to the door. They were going to leave her in the frozen house alone!

"Some friends you are! I've met more loyal _chickens!"_ She rushed forward to cross the threshold with Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Snotlout, but as soon as her foot touched the line between indoors and outdoors, an electric shock raced through her and threw her back. She landed on the ground with a thud and helplessly watched as the door closed behind them, bemoaning their lack of brains.

Suddenly, a feeling that someone was watching her crept up her neck. Creeped out, she slowly turned around.

The bloody ghost from the library haunted a corner of the room, a maniac grin carved into his misshapen face. _He_ was keeping the gang from seeing her and locking her in the house.

"You!" she accused angrily. "You have no right to keep me here against my will!"

 _Asssstrid,_ he laughed. Before his very eyes, his nose turned into a snout and his head flattened. His body circled in on itself as his limbs thickened into those of the black beast. The same green eyes pierced her gaze.

 _Assssstrid. Do you want to play?_

Astrid turned tail and ran. The black beast bounded after her, tail whipping through the air. She didn't go up the stairs again, but turned her attention to a different part of the house, hoping all the hallways would confuse it.

The first door she burst through led to a fully-stocked, old-fashioned kitchen. Astrid lunged for the knife rack, which displayed several fine specimens for chopping meat. Grabbing the largest knife, she whirled around and hurled it at her pursuer, which was in the doorway. It ducked, so she snatched the second largest one and threw it at him, too, to keep him from entering the room. Because was trapped in the doorway, her third blade buried itself square in the dragon's chest, where its heart would have been.

"Monster," Astrid hissed.

Pride at being able to defend herself flowed through Astrid, but horror soon replaced the feeling as the dragon changed back into a human. Her knife was embedded in the young man's chest.

He looked down at it, then back to her.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! You were that beast! Besides, it's not like you can be dead when you're already a ghost!" she defended herself, although why she was explaining herself to a crazy dead person when he couldn't even think properly was beyond her.

He yanked the knife out with his hand and dropped it on the ground. The wound started bleeding profusely.

He looked up, his eyes connecting directly with hers.

 _Thisss isss what happensss when you are what you are, Asssssstrid._ Slowly, he grew paler and paler as the wound bled out before fading into nothing.

…

Astrid took advantage of the fully-stocked kitchen to fill her stomach, since she hadn't eaten anything in a while. She found a towel that covered four freshly baked loaves of bread and used one of the knives she hadn't thrown to saw off a slice. Despite its hard crust, which Astrid had to crank down on to saw through, the inside was spongy and soft.

She buttered two pieces and carried a plate over to the central island. Finding an urn of unspoiled milk in a cabinet, she poured herself a glass and sat down to relax. After her recent encounter with the supernatural being of the hour, she was shocked. A clap of thunder shook the fancy light fixture overhead.

The beast and the boy had to be connected somehow, or they wouldn't switch back and forth. When they had been alive, they had to have been friends.

Or _had_ they? Dragons were mythical creatures, and none had ever lived on Berk, or else she would have studied them at some point in school. Tourists would have flocked to their small town. The dragon had to be a representation, then, not an actual dragon. It probably stood for something horrible in the boy's life, perhaps the person who had killed him. His father?

But the beast didn't _feel_ like he stood for the boy's father. It moved like a shadow across hallways. When it had invited her to play, it had sounded childish despite what it actually meant. The ghost boy's father had gone mad all at once. He hadn't been rotten to the core like the fire-breathing monster was.

Where did everything fit in?

Astrid slapped her forehead. She'd brought her phone with her and had forgotten it was in her pocket the whole time! After pulling it out of her pocket, she rested it on the surface she was eating on and turned it on.

The device warmed up for a second. Impatiently, Astrid swiped at the screen and tapped in her passcode. The first thing she did was hit contacts and dial Ruffnut's number. On speakerphone, the call went through for a couple of seconds before the dial tone hit. A message popped up on the screen: _Cellular service is not available at the moment._

She tried texting Ruffnut and got the same message.

"You've got the be _kidding_ me!" Berk had cell towers everywhere because it was such a small town! How could the mansion not have cell service? Fuming, Astrid closed the texting app and typed _black dragons, Berk, Raven Mansion_ into a search engine.

Results pulled up. Astrid was really fuming. She couldn't call or text Ruffnut, but she could ask Google a question? That wasn't normal!

Since she wasn't going to get a signal by sitting down, Astrid decided to use the Google results before that quit on her as well.

Crunching on another piece of bread, she read some very interesting facts about a species of dragon called Night Furies, which fit the description of the black dragon in the mansion perfectly. Dubbed the offspring of lightning and death, Night Furies were coated in black scales and fired plasma burst instead of regular dragon flames.

Astrid read on eagerly until she realized that she was on a mythological geek website and none of the above facts were true. She closed the website in disgust. Finished with her bread, she picked up her plate to take it over to the rude sink.

 _"_ _Dad?"_

The plate shattered as it hit the floor. Porcelain shrapnel flew in different directions. Astrid paid the mess no heed as she raced through a mudroom to the back door of the mansion. The sound was coming from outside.

She didn't pause to rejoice when the door wasn't locked and she could step outside freely into the night, because she was too focused on the two figures standing in the field of grass. She pushed through the waist-high blades to reach them. Even though Astrid and they were some distance apart, she could hear them clearly.

 _"_ _You've sided with them, Hiccup! All of it has been lies, hasn't it?"_ Astrid recognized the man from the portrait in the living room. Massive shoulders dwarfed the small boy's figure, who did not have a knife wound or blood all over him.

 _"_ _Dad, I can explain, if you would listen to me!"_ The boy threw his arms wide, obviously exasperated.

 _"_ _You're no son of mine! You've sided with the enemy! How could you befriend a dragon? They're the scourge of Berk!"_

Astrid found herself glued to the spot as she watched the scene unfold.

 _"_ _Dad! Are you hearing a word I've said? They're not what we think they are!"_

The man didn't reply. He took a knife out of a sheath at his waist – Astrid just now noticed that they were dressed very archaically – and advanced towards the boy.

He backed away, raising up his arms. _"_ _Dad? Dad! What are you doing? You don't have to do this!"_

 _"_ _I have no choice! The beasts have bewitched you."_

 _"_ _Dad! Please! For once in your life would you listen to me?! Dad!"_ The plea was filled with more emotion than that of a sarcastic teenager. It was filled with a lifetime of begging.

 _"_ _Dad!"_

The knife descended.


	12. What Had BeenWhat Might Have Been

**12.5: What Had Been**

A cry ripped its way out of Astrid's throat. Her feet unstuck from the ground and she lunged at the man's ghost, trying to stop what was going to happen. Moonlight flashed off the blade as it swooped towards its target – Hiccup, the boy – in a hand that should have been a father's hand, not that of a murderer.

She was too late.

The knife's deadly descent ended.

She ripped through the ghostly figures, not moving a molecule.

The boy screamed.

Blood.

The boy collapsed.

Dead.

The man sobbed.

Insane.

A dragon roared.

Anguished.

Lightning flashed.

 **12: What Might Have Been**

Rain poured down on Astrid as she sat in the middle of the grass field. The man and the boy had long since disappeared, and the rain was soaking her hair and her clothes, but she did not move. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the boy's – Hiccup's – death.

Tears dripped down her face and mixed with the raindrops. She wasn't ashamed of crying this time.

The scene was history, more than a hundred years old, but it had been as real as if it had happened ten minutes ago.

She did not feel triumph at learning the ghost's name or discovering how the dragon was connected. He'd died. She couldn't save him, because the past was in the past.

"It's not fair!" she screamed at the raging sky. "I could have stopped it! I could have changed what might have been if I had been alive! If they had been alive! He could have _lived._ "

Thunder rolled and jagged lightning cut through the sky.

" _Why?_ Why show it to me if _I can't fix it?"_

Creening of an empty animal filled the air. It howled to the unforgiving, unmerciful sky. Purple light that the storm that did not generate lit up the surroundings before dying out.

The rain could have gone on forever, and Astrid would have stayed with it. The rain eventually lost its intensity before dying out. The animal's cries died as the clouds dissolved into gray matter. The storm was over, and a new day in the time-warped bubble began.

Astrid dragged her body to its feet and wandered back to the house. When she opened the back door, laughter drifted through the air. Who would be laughing when a boy had been unjustly murdered?

Though mud covered her shoes, she trekked across the kitchen without hindrance, leaving soiled prints behind her.

Sunlight merrily shone in the windows, which she had left open trying to get the gang's attention the previous day. Astrid scowled at it. How dare it be happy!

A tiny child's laugh rose again. _"_ _Are dragons real, Mom?"_

Astrid could hear the tender smile in the mother's reply. _"_ _Of course, Hiccup. They're as real as you and I. When I was a girl, they blocked out the sun as they flew overhead."_

 _"_ _I like dragons, Mommy! Why doesn't Daddy like dragons, too?"_

" _Oh, Hiccup. He just doesn't understand them."_

 _Understand. Understand. Understand._ Echoed through the room, heavy like the words of a judge and the bang of a gavel.

In less than a millisecond, the walls and roof of the mansion disappeared. Iron claws wrapped around Astrid's arms and snatched her into the black air that enveloped everything around them. Large, indistinguishable objects wished by her ears.

"Put me down!" Astrid screamed.

In response, a tree branch thwacked her across the face. The beast was zig-zagging through a forest. Was it punishing her for the death of its master?

"I didn't do it! I didn't kill Hiccup! I tried to stop it!

 _You are_ just like _them._

Angry fire welled up above her in the dragon's stomach and he growled above the rushing wind in her ears.

"I am not! Just like who, anyway?" She yanked an arm, which did not affect her predicament.

The dragon crashed and whipped through the trees, throwing her through the air. She hit the ground of the forest with an oomph. The dragon landed at the opposite side of the cove. To Astrid's left was a placid lake, and to her right was a black wall of dirt. She would not be escaping anytime soon.

The dragon hunched down and stared at her.

 _Just._

 _Like._

 _Them._

"Explain!" Astrid threw up an arm. "How? What did I do!" The dragon lunged at her again, and they both soared into the air. Just as quickly as she had been picked up, she was dropped in the mansion again, only to see herself standing next to her friends in the middle of the living room.

 _"_ _It was probably his flabby muscles," Snotlout sneers. "Who'd want a son like that?"_

 _An angry Astrid blows up at her friends for help they never gave, even though they never knew she needed it._

 _They stare at each other, accusingly, thinking that the others have stolen their possessions._

 _They wander around the house, with no regard to its condition._

 _Tuffnut breaks the couch._

"I _haven't_ done anything!" Astrid protested, staring at herself. "What have I done? My friends and I were just having fun!"

The dragon growled from its watching position in the corner. It shook its head.

 _The twins and Snotlout trample over the house. The duck tape rips wallpaper off the walls._

"The house was falling apart anyway!" Astrid exploded. "You can't blame me for what everybody else does!"

It gave her no warning before fire overtook the scenes she was watching and her eyelids drooped and shut, as if closed by Morpheus himself.

She dreamed that she was not herself. She was watching through the eyes of another, feeling the feelings of another, and hearing through the ears of another.

Everything she saw was fractured and mismatched. Colors dampened in some areas and shone too boldly in others. At the top of the main staircase of the mansion, she stared down, deciphering the images in her brain. People, talking, then eventually arguing. People stomping off in different directions.

It was more than rambunctious teens rambling about and exploring on private property.

It _hurt._

As they walked, invisible shards of glass dug into her stomach and her mind, erasing warm, happy memories. She lost her name. She lost who she was the longer they stayed. She tried talking to one, but it didn't work.

The one returned later. Was that herself that she was looking at? She tried to talk to herself, but the only thing that came out was a poem. Herself yelled in response. The words sliced into her like whips, and she lost a little bit more of what she could remember from when she was alive.

Her memories when she wasn't alive were much clearer, so she turned to those. People. So many people. They did not look at her, only trample and ruin her _house._ Where she _lived._ Where all her memories are stored.

The music box went missing.

Another memory, disappearing like smoke.

More people, rushing by, ruining things, leave objects like metal cans and wrappers that didn't belong.

More people.

 _More people._

More and more and more and more. A tornado of faces and wrongs whipped around her.

As more and more shards of disturbances ripped into her head, she understood what it did to the boy's – Hiccup, she reminded herself – ghost. She _knew._

"I'm sorry!" she screamed. "Just let me out of here! I won't come back, I promise! Just let me go!"

And like that, it all stopped. No more people. No more anything. Astrid opened her eyes. She was standing in the middle of the mansion, which had returned to its previous state of desolation. The sky shone as brightly as when she had first come to investigate when she was bored.

Hesitantly, she walked over to the door and touched the doorknob. When nothing happened, she turned it and opened the door. The bright, cheery sunshine of Berk warmed her cheeks. Without incident, she crossed the threshold and left the house.

She walked about four feet before she gritted her teeth. With the way things had gone, she just couldn't leave without a final...something! What that something was, she didn't know, but it had to be done. She still wore the gear to the music box around her neck.

Marching back into the house, she surveyed the inside. Would the ghost appear if the house was rotten? Determined for everything to be perfect, Astrid shut the door quietly and cleared her throat.

"Uh, hi. It's me, Astrid. You know, the girl your dragon kind of kicked out of the house. Well, I was wondering, are you here?" She waited for a few seconds. "If you're not here, or if you want me to leave, that's completely fine, but I still have your gear. It's important to you, right? You love that music box."

She held the gear out from her neck. "I'm here, if you want it."

Above her, a timber creaked in the wind and what was left of the broken window panes rattled eerily. The gusts picked up hesitantly. To show him that she wasn't there to hurt him (although how she could hurt a dead person, she didn't know), she closed her eyes and slipped the cord with the gear off her neck, holding it out.

Cold seeped into the room, but Astrid did not move. When he drew nearer, she did not crack open an eyelid, though the dispense killed her. To talk or touch her had to be his choice, not hers. Even though she waited patiently, she cold not hold in the light gasp whenever a flesh hand clasped over her own.

 _"_ _I'm the dragon of Grindly Grum, I breathe fire as hot as the sun. When a knight comes to fight, I toast him on the sight, like a hot cripsy cinnamon bun,"_ a nasally voice recited.

Astrid opened her eyes. Sky blue met human green.

"Hi." He grinned impishly at her.

Her eyes dropped to his chest. "The knife!" she said, surprised, forgetting her mental pledge not to say anything.

Hiccup (Astrid had to stop calling him "the ghost") followed her gaze and looked down. "Oh. Today's a good day."

If he considered not having a knife wound to the chest a good day, then Astrid had to rethink her priorities.

Without hesitation, Astrid punched him in the arm.

"Why would you _do_ that?!" he howled, clutching the offending arm.

Astrid was shocked the she could punch a ghost without her fist going through him. "Why would I do that?! Why would _you_ go through all the trouble to scare me away as a dragon just to waltz up to me and say hi afterwards? You dragged me through a whole forest!"

"That wasn't me! That was Toothless!" he protested.

" _Toothless?_ That beast had teeth! And I know it was you because you turned right into him. And how come you chased me all over the library and stole our stuff and the bloody hand prints on the music room's wall? The haunting melody! I want an answer!" Astrid crossed her arms.

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "Toothless is overprotective, although for good reason. People hurt me. Like, really, really hurt me." He blinked at her, as if contemplating the probability that she was going to stab him. "He's probably around here somewhere. We never go anywhere without each other."

"Even to death?" Astrid asked.

He smiled sadly. "Yeah."

"Well, what about everything else? Remember the bloody hand prints on the wall of the music room?"

"I said that people hurt me. When they destroy the house, they destroy a part of my ghost's memories. I don't _mean_ to lose control of my mind, but it happens whether I want it to or not. The house is my Reason to stay here."

"You're not crazy now," she pointed out.

The sad smile turned into a full-blown grin. "As I said, today's a good day. "

"So if the house is destroyed, you go bonkers?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it so crudely as _bonkers,"_ he said indignantly, _"_ I wasn't a complete tosspot."

Astrid snorted. "Yes, you were."

Low growling emitted from a specially dark corner of the house, and Hiccup's face lit up. "Toothless! Come out here, bud, and give a proper greeting."

The corner growled again, but slowly, the dark shape of a dragon peeled away from the wall, which instantly flooded with life, and crawled over to the ghost. It wrapped itself protectively around the boy.

"You named a dragon Toothless?"

Toothless growled, showing off fine white fang specimens that could rip her in half in a second.

"His teeth are retractable." Hiccup petted the dragon on the head. Perking up immediately, it cooed and rubbed its snout into his palm.

"That wasn't very nice of you, Toothless, to drag me around the forest," she grumbled, receiving a growl in reply. "Why isn't he talking to me now? He had plenty to say earlier. ' _I. Am. Death,'"_ she mimicked. Her courage had been restored since he wasn't going to be attacking her anytime soon with Hiccup around.

Despite the reassuring hand on his head, Toothless snarled at her. Hiccup grinned, as if it was the cutest thing in the world. "Probably because I wasn't around." His eyebrows furrowed. "Or I was he? Everything mixes up and gets so _confusing_ sometimes." Hiccup grubbed his forehead, his human body flickering into ghost form for a second.

Astrid took a step back. "We don't have to talk about it, really." Anything to keep the knife, the blood, and the evil grin from returning, even if she was curious about why his father had killed him for befriending the dragon.

"But it's all that ever happens to me," he said despairingly. "If I never figure it out, I won't be able to fix it."

"You're dead – you can't fix...all this." She gestured at him.

"Thank you for summing that up," he drawled sarcastically. "You just gestured to all of me!"

"You know what I mean!" she stomped her foot. "This whole meeting changes everything, you know!"

"Toothless and I are still dead!"

"I don't think I can take it in that your dead, but _I'm talking to you."_

Toothless snorted, sending a puff of steam out his nostrils.

"Have you talked to anybody else?" she pressed curiously, shifting from foot to foot. After standing for a while, she was tired.

"If you're tired, we can sit down. No, I haven't." He sat down cross-legged next to his dragon and leaned back against his black scales.

Astrid followed suit. "Why not? Plenty of people come through here."

He frowned, flickering again. "I _said_ people hurt."

"Should I leave then?" Astrid asked concernedly. "I tried to earlier, but when you went all _tosspot,_ you put up a barrier around everything."

"You don't hurt as much as they do." His eyes lit up and sparkled. "Since you're here, do you want to see my workshop?"

Stunned at the offer, Astrid blinked. "You want me to?"

"Why not? You have time to kill."

Astrid groaned at the bad pun. "If you're sure, lead the way."

"After you, Milady."


	13. Home, Sweet Workshop

**Home, Sweet Workshop**

Hiccup chatted animatedly all the way down the hallways, pulling her by her wrist. Enjoying the change from scary to friendly, Astrid let him lead her into the unexplored depths of the mansion. As they hurried along, the house started changing from drab and despondent to restored again, like Hiccup was putting life back into it. It wasn't enough, however, for some of the wallpaper was faded in some places and the dust didn't completely evaporate. She didn't have the heart to point it out to him.

"Toothless heats up my furnace for me, since I'm not strong enough to pump the bellows," Hiccup informed her. "One blast from a dragon's stomach and you're set for hours. Do they let girls do blacksmithing now?"

Astrid coughed. "You mean...on Berk?"

"Yes."

Astrid coughed again. "Yes, I suppose," she eventually got out. Technically, she wasn't lying because welding was modern blacksmithing. She just hoped he wouldn't ask for details on new techniques.

"My godfather said I was the best blacksmith he ever trained, although he was prone to exaggerate. He's also the one who told me that trolls steal your left socks."

"I'll be sure to keep my left socks under lock and key."

Hiccup dropped her arm to grab a key off a wall. On his first couple attempts, his fingers slid right into the metal. Eventually, he gripped them and unlocked the door they had stopped in front.

Toothless breathed down their necks until they scuttled into the dark room. Then, he hopped around, shooting puffs of sparks out of his mouth and lighting up lanterns on the walls.

Hiccup's workshop was the spitting image of a rust-covered forge. An anvil and a hammer stood in the center of the room, next to a furnace and a water trough. Thousands of weathered scraps of paper covered the walls, so much so that their original color wasn't distinguishable. They were all sketches and paragraphs for inventions that, rather unfortunately, had already been invented.

"Someday, man will fly!" Hiccup proclaimed, snatching a diagram off the wall. He caught her stricken look. "What is the matter? Is there something wrong with it?"

Astrid bit her lip and crossed her arms uncomfortably. "It's just that...airplanes have been around for a while, and we don't need automatic counting machines because we have calculators and computers."

His face fell and he wobbled in and out of ghost form. "They...have?"

Astrid nodded.

"Oh." Thunder crashed outside. "Oh," he repeated again, looking lost. Was Astrid imagining it, or was the faint outline of a knife sticking out of his chest?

She searched around desperately for something to distract him. "Do you like learning things?"

"Yes?"

"Well, at my school we're learning physics, which is about matter, energy, magnetism, light, electricity, and lots of other stuff. I think you would like all of the science we have now. If you want, I could bring you my textbook or..."

His eyes lit up again. "Physics! That sounds amazing!"

Pleased that his friend was happy again, Toothless crooned from his spot by the furnace.

"Want to see my current project?" Hiccup asked eagerly.

"Sure." Astrid rested her arms on the metal-pounding counter and waited as he rummaged through papers scattered on the ground.

"Here it is!" He plunked a piece of metal down in front of her.

"Uh...what it is?" she asked, hesitant of offending him.

"A peg leg."

"A peg leg?" Astrid took a second look at it. "For who?"

"For whom." Hiccup make a sour face. "For myself."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "Ha ha ha. Who's it really for?"

"I told you! For _myself."_

"I don't remember you limping any." Astrid rose on her tip toes, trying to get a glimpse of his feet.

"I'm a ghost," Hiccup said, as if that one sentence explained everything away.

"You lost a leg?"

"No. I thought I would make a peg leg so that I could have a fifth appendage, since its the style. Octopuses are all the rage nowadays."

"Why make one if you're a ghost and you can walk any way you want?"

He ogled at her like she was the mad one. "So that I can walk anyway I want?"

Astrid shrugged. She certainly had no say in if he walked with one or not. "Did you really lose your leg?"

He shot her a withering look. "What do you think?"

"How did you lose it?"

"Toothless bit it off."

"What?!" Astrid backed away from the counter and towards the door. "You didn't tell me your dragon ate human limbs!" Now she was trapped in the basement of a rotten mansion with a cannibalistic dragon!

"He didn't do it because he was _hungry."_ Hiccup rolled his eyes. "I forgot how dramatic people can be."

Astrid's voice rose in disbelief. "And you aren't?!"

Hiccup leveled his gaze on her. "Do you think that I would be standing so calmly here with that dragon behind me if he had eaten me?"

"You're dead! He can't exactly eat you again!"

"He didn't eat me in the first place! My leg had gangrene, so he had to bite it off before the infection took over the rest of my body."

"Oh. Well, then." Astrid smiled at Toothless. "Good boy!"

The dragon snarled at her.

"How'd it get gangrene?" she prodded, still trying to get a glimpse of his leg to see if it was, indeed, a peg leg or nothing at all. Toothless, as if sensing her intent, growled at her, showing his full set of teeth.

"How anybody else gets gangrene," Hiccup snarked, shoving the unfinished prosthetic onto a shelf. "Can we move on?"

Astrid studied him. "You can't remember, can you?"

Hiccup sighed miserably. "If you must know, it's one of those things that hurts to remember, and no matter how hard I try, whenever it happened is bits and pieces. I don't know if that's because of a fever or it's just one of the perks of being a ghost."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Eh." Hiccup messed half-heartedly with a mile of papers, swapping them around, rearranging them, and eventually dumping them on the floor. "I need to clean up in here. I'll have to put it on my to-do list."

Astrid snorted merrily. Hiccup raised his head questioningly. "It's just that most people, when finding out that they're a ghost, would consider it a vacation and forget to-do lists. Do you actually get stuff done?"

"Of course!" From Hiccup's tone of voice, one would of thought she had accused him of stealing gold.

Astrid raised her hands. "I was just wondering. While I'm on a question asking roll-"

Hiccup snorted. "Yes, you are rather curious today."

"-do you actually play the piano, or when you're a ghost, you have super abilities?"

"I think I do." Hiccup scratched the top of his head. "Although I'd have to sit in front of a piano to tell. Do you?"

Astrid shifted uncomfortably. "Well, yes, although if it ever got out that I did, I would never hear the end of it."

"Mortal Embarrassment is my middle name! Let's go then!"

On the way to the music room, they took a different route than the one Astrid had taken. Along the course, they passed through an artwork gallery. Pulling Astrid through at a rapid pace, Hiccup made comments to her such as, "Grimbeard the Ghastly – now there's a nice fellow you want to invite over for family reunions!" and, "Old Wrinkly – walruses had nothing on him!"

"I take it you're not a fan of your relatives?"

"Who is? We were Vikings of the worst kind." Toothless growled an affirmative. Since Astrid was around, he didn't want to approach Hiccup, although he kept a loyal mind on his friend as if Astrid was going to attack him at any moment.

"You obviously haven't met Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Snotlout," Astrid muttered, "otherwise your opinion would be drastically changed."

The music room had not changed since the bloody hand print incident, except this time, Astird was with Hiccup and didn't have to worry about her friends crashing in on her. The black piano sparkled invitingly.

"After you, Milady," Hiccup invited, gesturing to the leather seat.

"Thanks."

Astrid pounded on the piano for a couple of minutes. Occasionally, Hiccup suggested a song, and Astrid played it if she knew it, although she mostly didn't. Toothless howled every time her fingers hit a wrong note. After about twenty minutes, she slammed down one last chord and turned to Hiccup. "Your turn," she suggested gleefully.

Hiccup looked around. "Me? Uh, hey, you want to see the billiard room?

"No. I want to hear you play."

"But I'm not that great," Hiccup whined. "However, I am _fantastic_ at pool. My godfather taught me how to play."

"You just said that you could play," Astrid accused, nearly crashing to the floor as she attempted to untangle herself from the piano bench. "Can you or can't you?"

Hiccup sighed. "I have a feeling that if I say no, you are going to hound me for the rest of your time here, aren't you?"

"Yep!" Astrid declared properly. "The sooner you start playing, the less I'll bug you in the future. Have at it."

She slapped the lid of the piano, and Hiccup winced. "Would you please be careful with this?"

"Sorry."

Taking the longest time anyone ever could, Hiccup adjusted the piano bench to his liking, although Astrid could see nothing wrong with it. When he finished that, he sat down and poked his tongue into his cheek. He shot a hopeful glance at her. "I don't suppose you happen to know where some sheet music is?"

Astrid groaned. "You went through all of that to turn around and ask me if I know where sheet music is? This is your house, isn't it?"

"You kids mess things up and move things around," Hiccup complained, bouncing on the stool.

"We didn't touch your sheet music, although I wasn't with the twins and Snotlout for the whole time."

"Tell me about them."

Astrid blinked, startled at the request. "You want to hear about Snotlout and the twins? There's nothing exciting about them." When he didn't comment, she went on, wondering if she was about to send him screaming in terror at the ways of the modern human world. Since she knew the twins best, she started with them.

"Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thorsen are the craziest twins on Berk and can turn any innocent-looking object into a weapon of terror. If a prank happens, there's a one-hundred-percent chance that they were behind it."

"I see. The regular terrible terrors?"

" _Yes._ Then there's Snotlout, who studies his reflection more than he studies school, not that turning his attention to his schoolwork would improve his D minus average."

He turned his green eyes upon her. "D minus average? I take it from the tone of your voice that this D minus is bad and you don't like Snotlout very much."

Astrid shook her head as fast as possible in agreement. "Snotlout is a little worm. He's always flirting with me – you should hear his disgusting 'marriage proposals' – and he doesn't even bathe. He loses his comb about five times a day, and I'm sure you could go to college on the amount he spends on hair gel."

"Hair gel?" he asked, confused.

Astrid slapped her head to her forehead. "Oh, I bet you don't even know what that is. I keep forgetting you're a ghost. I don't think hair gel was invented in your time period, but haven't you heard Snotlout yakking about when whenever he came with Tuffnut, Ruffnut, and me?"

Regretfully, Hiccup shook his head. "I only recall something about gorilla glue."

Laughing, Astrid explained. "With the way Snotlout lathers it on his head, it might as well be gorilla glue." Slightly bored with talking about Snotlout, of all people, Astrid wandered back over to the piano and banged two random keys. Since it sounded a bit like "For the Dancing and the Dreaming," Astrid messed around a little.

Spotting a group of upturned music stands in the room, which were caused by his poor dragon's tail that seemed to have a mind of its own, Hiccup gave a small cry and vacated the chair to fix what he saw as an obvious mess. Left to her own devices, Astrid tinkered around. She inspected the leaves of sheet music left on the piano's stand, and to her delight, she found "For the Dancing and the Dreaming."

To please Hiccup, although why she wanted to please him she didn't know, Astrid set it in front of the others and sat down in the chair. She quickly got back up, for it was ice cold. After running her hand over the nice leather to warm it up, she took the chair again and prepared to sight read, which she liked to think she was better at than she really was.

As soon as she started playing, Hiccup's head whipped up from the tangle of music stands and his eyes switched to Toothless's unfriendly ones.

A low growl reverberated in his throat.

As if the keys burned them, Astrid yanked her hands away. "Sorry!" Remembering that he was still a ghost was difficult when he looked completely human at the moment.

The growling subsided. After a minute: "That was my mother's."

Curiosity growing, Astrid asked, "Is she around here? I mean, if you're a ghost, can't your friends and relatives be ghosts, too? Toothless is one, isn't he?"

Hiccup frowned, lowering his head. "She was. But I think you killed her."


	14. Missing Mother

A/N: I've got to admit, when I read the words of my last chapter, I couldn't even remember what came next, and I was shocked. So I essentially cliff-hangered myself. xP

 **Missing Mother**

Getting accused for murder of a paranormal person who had already died stunned Astrid, to say the least. "What do you mean, _'You killed her'?!"_

"Whenever you took the music box, she disappeared," Hiccup explained, the words visibly paining him.

" _That's_ why you went all crazy in my bedroom? But I wasn't even the one who removed it from the mansion! The twins found it in a secret compartment in the mantel."

Hiccup frowned. "You had it. I assumed erroneously."

"I gave it back to you," Astrid pointed out. "Why wouldn't she come back?"

"I don't know," Hiccup lamented despairingly, forgetting all about the music stand mess. "I waited and waited, but she never came again."

Well, if she'd "killed" his mother while he was out of his head, that certainly explained why Toothless had chased her all over the house in punishment for torturing his friend.

Determined, Astrid almost pounded the lid of the piano with her fist, remembering at the last minute that Hiccup would have a heart attack and die a second death if she so much as scratched the paint.

"We've got to find her," she declared. "Where's the music box? I can fix it with the gear." To show him that she still had it, she removed the string from underneath her collar.

"You don't understand," Hiccup objected, standing up. "The music box already fixed itself."

"But the gear must run something! It shouldn't be able to play without it! Since you're a blacksmith, can't you figure it out?"

Hiccup glared at her. "Blacksmithing involves _physical_ objects. My mother's music box isn't so. If I could have fixed it on my own, I would have, but I don't have much control over myself, let alone what the house, the people who invade it, and its objects decide to do."

Ghost business confused Astrid. Sometimes, it felt like Hiccup, out of his mind, controlled the house, but other times, it was the other way around.

"I'll help you bring her back," Astrid declared determinedly.

Ignoring her vow for some weird reasons, Hiccup looked at his wrist, where a fictitious watch resided. "You should be falling asleep right now, by the way." He turned expectant eyes on her, as if she was going to fall to the ground with his words.

"But time stops in the mansion," Astrid pointed out, her eyelids sagging for no good reason.

"No, it doesn't. It moves at a rate of one second per something. Of course, that changes all of the time. As you know, I'm a ghost." After the music stands melted into nothing, Toothless reappeared and curled around Hiccup, whose trained gaze had not left her.

Why where her limbs weighing her down? Perhaps she should sit down, if only for a second. The second Astrid touched the floor, she fell asleep.

…

Astrid woke up sputtering, and for an excellent cause. Saliva dripping from his predatory jaws, Toothless stood above her, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. He'd licked her awake!

Astrid gave him one of her famous glares. "Oh, so now you're going to play nice with me? Don't want to eat me or dragon me half across the country?" Toothless wagged his thick tail, much like a dog.

Something was off. Hiccup's presence was missing, and Astrid knew that he would have waited for her to wake up. Secondly, Toothless was acting _nice,_ which should have tipped her off immediately that things were awry.

"Get off of me," Astrid commanded, struggling to sit up. Toothless complied, licking her cheek.

"Quit that!" Astrid protested. His saliva was thick and gooey, and some of it had dripped onto her shoulder. "That's not going to wash out of my shirt!" In reply to her comment, he butted his head against her shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah," Astrid muttered darkly, shoving him away without actually affecting his mass. "Act cute now."

Toothless made a noise much like a dog in the back of his throat. "Where's Hiccup?" Astrid asked. She gave in and rubbed him behind the ears. If she didn't, he would probably collapse on her like all of the other dogs Astrid had run into during her short life.

A scream echoed through the mansion, and Astrid's whole body snapped around in reaction. Her mind ran crazy until she recalled Hiccup's words. _"Today's a good day."_ While she had been asleep, had a new day risen? Had Hiccup's mind – or was it the house? – taken control of him again?

Toothless remained curled around her in a protective cocoon. "I'm all right," Astrid insisted. She gave a poor attempt to throw him off. "Let me go so I can find Hiccup and talk some sense into his ghost head." Not that she would be able to. More than likely, he would chase her off and torment her as he had done before, but she could at least _try._

"Toothless." With her fist, Astrid pounded on Toothless's head, which he had chosen the moment to drop onto her stomach. "Get off of me, you useless reptile." When he refused, Astrid suddenly wished for the grumpy, death-liking Toothless who chased her around the house. At least then she had been going somewhere.

"Get. Off." Astrid poked him in the ear. He flashed his teeth at her. For what reason could he possibly want her to stay in the room for?

As if hearing her mental question, the temperature in the room dropped to freezing, and the only thing that kept her nerves from numbing was Toothless and the fire in his belly. Astrid brightened. Hiccup was coming! She could talk to him and help him, if helping a ghost was possible. (Probably not.)

On the other hand, Toothless still had ideas about her not moving. If Hiccup were to walk right past the room, she wouldn't be able to get to him should he ignore her call. Oh, bother! Astrid crossed her arms. Only _she_ would have problems about how to deal with a ghostly friend who went mad occasionally. Where was Snotlout to punch when she needed him?

To bring her back to focus, the temperature dropped even more, and a curious rumbling started up from deep within Toothless. He raised his head from her stomach and his "ears" rose into the air. His pupils contracted.

Soft, light footsteps that belonged to no one Astrid knew drifted in the doorway to the music room. Slowly, almost deliberately, they turned the corner, and a woman appeared and rested her hand on the door frame.

She looked younger than Astrid's mother (although Astrid had learned a long time ago that a ghost could look any age he or she wanted to) with long, red hair woven into a braid and the same old-fashioned clothes like Hiccup wore.

Since Astrid was a new expert on all things ghost, having been acquainted with Hiccup, she promptly freaked out like the squealing girl she was not. "Oh! Are you a ghost, too? I just met a ghost. He's a little weird in the head, but he can't help it." With her words, another scream echoed through the air.

At the sound, the woman wraith flinched. "Shh." She held up a long finger to her lips. "He does not know I am here."

Astrid's curious questions died on his lips, though new ones arose. "He doesn't? Why not? Who are you?"

"He does not. I am his mother, Valka." The woman moved farther into the room without taking her hand off the door frame.

"His mother?!" Astrid successfully shook off Toothless and stood up defiantly. "He's been looking for you and so heartbroken that he can't find you anymore. Are you hiding from him?"

Valka frowned, her pale forehead wrinkling. "I would not purposefully cause my son hurt. Yes, I am hiding from him, although it is not because of my own, hurtful wishes. I would never do such a thing."

Astrid put her arms on her hips. "Well, you just did. Can't you hear him? You're causing him pain!" Toothless's head swiveled back and forth between them.

"The house," Valka stated. "The music box." She gestured with her hand vaguely, but with force. "He holds on to me – no, to the music box too much. He holds on to everything in the house too much."

"How can he not?" Astrid questioned. "It's all that he has left of his life! You should understand that! You're a ghost, too. Do you lose your head whenever people destroy the house?"

"He's holding on to the house too much," Valka repeated again, more agitated. "He must stop. It is destroying him. I learned long ago that you cannot attach yourself to material things."

"I don't get it!" Astrid stood up and began to pace. "Why? How?"

"He is using the house as a sort of anchor to hold his memories intact, which hold him here. My memories are not based on this house. I do not need it to stay here." Valka watched her pace, an earnest yet impassive look on her face. "He's losing."

"So let me get this straight. As a ghost, the only thing that is keeping Hiccup in this world is his memories, which are attached to the mansion. It's his 'reason.' The mansion goes, he goes. You, on the other hand, won't go, because you didn't attach your memories to the mansion."

"Yes," Valka confirmed in the particular accent that Astrid was beginning to realize matched Hiccup's.

"What I don't get," Astrid continued, "is why you're keeping away from Hiccup."

Valka made another vague, forceful gesture. "I do not wish to harm him!

"Would you please speak normal for once?" Astrid asked, exasperated, temporarily forgetting that she might have been speaking to a ghost, but that ghost was an adult.

"You have to understand him," Valka said, drifting to the corner of the room distractedly.

"I understand him as much as I can!" Astrid snapped. She turned to Toothless to discover that he had slunked off somewhere while she and Valka had been talking. Some help he was. "If you want me to understand _you,_ you're going to have to put what you're trying to say in better terms."

"You have to understand him, more than just being acquaintances. If you can discover what, you can save him, Astrid. I was too late." Faster than the blink of an eye, Valka transported herself over to Astrid, her earnest eyes meeting Astrid's. "I was too late. _Please._ Save my son."

With that, she disappeared, leaving Astrid staring slack-jawed at the place where she had been.

To say Astrid was unhappy was an understatement. She wasn't tripped-over-a-cactus-pot-blew-the-sprinklers kind of mad, but a you-told-me-to-save-the-world-with-a-banana-peel-and-a-coat-hanger-thank-goodness-you-gave-me-the-coat-hanger mad.

Remembering at the last second that Hiccup would throw a fit if she hurt anything, Astrid stormed around the music room. How on _earth_ was she supposed to understand Hiccup when she couldn't even find him?

How could she understand him as deeply as Valka wanted her to when she had only spoken to him on a rare good day?

What if Hiccup never had another good day while she was around? What if she was stuck in the mansion forever, waiting for something that would never come?

Another of Hiccup's anguished screams echoed through the mansion. When Astrid closed her eyes, she still saw his death. The flash of the knife on its way down had permanently sealed its way into her eyelids. She wanted to destroy that knife.

She remembered the blood on Hiccup's chest, which she never had a chance of stopping.

She remembered Hiccup's blood-curling screams, begging his own father not to kill him.

In an instant, the answer came to Astrid


	15. Search for Me to Know Me

**Search For Me to Know Me**

Why had Hiccup become a ghost in the first place?

Unjustly, his father had killed him. What had the ghost of a memory said?

 _"_ _You're no son of mine! You've sided with the enemy! How could you befriend a dragon? They're the scourge of Berk"_ and _"I have no choice! The beasts have bewitched you."_

With whom was Hiccup friends? Toothless, who also happened to be a "beast," or in more modern terms, a dragon. From Hiccup's father's tone of voice, dragon's hadn't sounded high on his list of best friends. Quite the opposite. His tone of voice indicated that he hated them, enough that he would take his own son's life.

 _Lies. All of it, lies_ had been scribbled in the journal. What would Hiccup lie about? She didn't know much about him to know if he was the type of person who lied all the time, abhorred it, or met someplace in the middle, although people from his time period were known for being sticklers for the truth. If that was still true about Hiccup, Astrid could not think of anything he would verdantly lie about. Unless the two were connected... If Hiccup's father hated dragons so much, Hiccup could possibly lie about befriending them. But if he was befriending them in the first place, he would keep it a secret and not say anything to his father, hence destroying the need to lie.

Astrid groaned and ran a hand through her braid, upsetting it. She ripped her tie out and shook her hair out, then twisted it up again. Why did dead people have to be so _confusing?_

What would Hiccup lie about?

Once her braid was completed, she chewed on the time until she caught herself. She didn't understand anything. Hiccup wouldn't have had any motive, nor his father unless something else had transpired before Hiccup died. Days. Weeks. _Months,_ even.

"How am I ever going to find out anything?" she groaned aloud. "How can I dig into history that isn't even written down?" No record existed. Anything she knew she'd either heard directly from Hiccup or Toothless himself or had seen in a memory.

A crazy idea dawned upon Astrid.

If the house held Hiccup's memories, then the ones she was looking for had to be stored somewhere in the mangy mess. Of course, that was assuming the house was like her computer at home and stored things in files. If that was true and the house/Hiccup's crazy head controlled what time the mansion was stuck in, she could simply ask Hiccup – or, if it came down to it, force him, although she didn't know how she would do that – to send her back.

To when it had all happened.

"How do I ask a house to do something for me?" she mused. Did she walk up to the nearest wall, knock on it, and beg an inanimate object to let her slip through time?

"Ridiculous," she muttered. "You'd think I didn't have a set of brains on me."

Hiccup's scream, which she hadn't heard because she was so deep in thought, resonated through the house, closer to her than ever before. Encountering him when he was crazy and didn't recognize her was not on Astrid's bucket list. She'd had enough of run-ins with him, and she wanted the old Hiccup back already.

Clearing her throat, she hesitantly approached the wall. The last time she had come into contact with it, bloody hand prints had sprouted across it, and the sticky substance had covered her hands. At the memory, she shuddered and wiped her hands on her pants.

"Um, hello. I'm Astrid, but you probably already know that since I've been in here for the past day or two." She cringed at the sound of her own voice, but bravely forged on. If it didn't respond to her stupidity, so be it.

On the spur of the moment, she adopted a formal approach. "If you would be so kind as to allow me to visit the months before the son of the proprietor of this house's death, I would be most appreciative."

Was she really talking to a wall?

Astrid turned around in disgust and marched out of the music room and out into the hallway. She was going as raving mad as Hiccup, if she hadn't reached that point already.

The ground rippled beneath her feet. Everything shook: the air, the building, her limbs, _time._

As fast as it had gone, it snapped back into place. Astrid was no longer standing in the house. She was out in the middle of a swamp, staring up at the house.

A hand touched her shoulder, she swung around, throwing her hand out in a wild punch, and the person it was intended for was ready and ducked.

"Hoff, my friend!" Ruffnut exclaimed, comically righting herself. "Where have you been? We tried to reach you at your house, but your mom said that she'd kicked you out of the house."

Astrid stared at her, shocked. "My mom isn't worried? I've been gone for like a day!"

Tuffnut rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we _know_ how much you like school. It's only two in the afternoon and you're already complaining!"

"My soul pained me while we were apart," Snotlout complained. "But hey, I had time to work out! Wanna see some of dis?"

In a daze, Astrid still remembered to scowl at Snotlout. "What do you mean, 'where were you?' In the mansion, you guys walked right past me!"

Tuffnut shook his head. "No, we didn't. If we had seen you, we would have dragged you back to the drug store to get yaknog!" He snapped his fingers and pointed at her with a silly grin on his face. "Eh? Daylight's burning!"

Turning a bewildered look at the sky, Astrid crossed her arms. She had not expected the mansion to kick her out. "What are you doing out here again?" she asked.

" _Snotlout_ left his hair comb," Tuffnut accused, "and he _insisted_ that we come back to get it."

"You're going back to the mansion?"

"Is something wrong with you?" Ruffnut asked. "You seem..off."

"Wrong? Why would you think anything was wrong?"

"This whole place is killing my jam," Snotlout replied. "Don't be too alarmed, but on the way here, all of the birds ignored me."

"So? The birds have more brains than you do and didn't want to burn their eye sockets out," Astrid snarked.

But Ruffnut shook her head. "No, he's serious, Astrid. It was eerie. Everything acted like we weren't there. Tuffnut tried to pick up a rock to kill a squirrel – sorry, for target practice. His hand passed right through it!"

Astrid scoffed, when in actuality she believed her friend. "You're pulling my leg."

"But it's true!"

"I don't see why you're still arguing," Snotlout grumbled, "when my comb is still missing."

"Oh, forget about your comb," Astrid snapped.

"If you don't believe me," Ruffnut said, "watch this!" Unconcerned that the terrain was no longer a desert, she bent down and moved to snap a cattail that was in one of the mire patches in half. As she had indeed said, her hand passed right through it and remained in such a state even when she wiggled her fingers.

"-and my comb budget is..." Snotlout's triffling words trailed off. "Hey, you weren't lying after all!"

Tuffnut gasped. "You thought we were lying?!"

His twin heard erroneously. "You think my style's dying?! WELL, YOURS NEVER EVEN MADE IT TO THE NURSING HOME!"

Snotlout puffed up like a Brahma rooster, ready to crow in protest. "OH, IS THAT WHERE YOURS IS CAMPED OUT? 'CAUSE IT'S OLD!"

"Time out!" Astrid grabbed her two friends nearest to her, Snotlout and Tuffnut, by the ears and dragged them away from the house, from which no sound or movement had come yet. "Since you guys are in the mood for conversation and seem to realize that this house and plot of land are not what they seem, I'm going to do a little explaining!" If the gang was going to be with her and they were, indeed, in the past, she was going to make them understand.

"But Astrid!" Ruffnut whined, trailing after her. "We were going to get yaknog!"

"Yaknog can wait. What I have is better."

…

Snotlout's jaw had dropped open five minutes ago and wasn't going to shut anytime soon. Astrid thought about giving him a good punch to solve the problem, but was having enough trouble as it was fending off the twins' questions.

"A ghost!" Ruffnut exclaimed incredulously. "You're joshing me. She's joshing me, Tuffnut. Are you joshing me?"

"No. I told you everything already. On top of all that, doesn't the landscape look a little weird to you?" Astrid waved a broken cattail to prove her point.

Tuffnut nodded. "Yes, especially with Ruffnut sitting right in front of me."

Ruffnut shoved him from behind. "Oh, you're the weird one!"

Jaw still open, Snotlout shook his head. "A ghost. I don't believe it."

Astrid interrupted. "Oh, and another thing. The laser maze. Did you say you felt like you had been shoved, Ruffnut?"

Ruffnut's hand crept to the back of her skull to the bare patch. She nodded.

"A ghost," Snotlout mumbled again. "I don't believe it."

"There are plenty of other things I could point out," Astrid went on, "but we need to move on to saving Hiccup." She was surprised that she hadn't already scared them off with her revelation and description of Hiccup at his worst.

The name of Hiccup broke Snotlout's stupid reverie. "Hiccup, Hiccup, Hiccup," he grumbled. "He's all you've been talking about for the past half hour. I bet I have more muscles that he does."

Hiccup _was_ on the scrawny side, but Astrid wasn't going to inform Snotlout of that.

"Why Snotlout," Tuffnut cackled. "From your tone of voice, one would think you're jealous of a dead guy."

"Jealous? Of a dead guy?! No way!" Snotlout sniffed proudly. "Never. He's got nothing on me."

Ruffnut flopped back onto the grass. "Ugh, it's so hot," she complained. "We don't even know if time has stopped, and I, for one, would like proof. Maybe your friend Hiccup could appear and do some weird ghost-like stuff for us. It's a good thing I brought my phone."

"Hiccup's not a toy." Astrid turned her eyes on the mansion. "Half of the time, he doesn't even know what he's doing. And if I'm right, and we are in the past, he's technically not a ghost anymore."

"Well, bummer," Tuffnut declared.

Who had thought that this would be a good idea?

Oh, yes. A ghost.


	16. The Past Is in the Present

**The Past is in the Present**

Anticipation growing, Tuffnut, Ruffnut, Snotlout, and Astrid watched the mansion. When nothing blew up in the next ten minutes, the twins started a two-man game of tag, which quickly turned into a slapping match. That awkwardly left Snotlout and Astrid together.

Snotlout's black t-shirt was already soaked in sweat. "How long do we have to stay out here?" he complained.

"About two hundred years!" Astrid exclaimed, enjoying the look of horror that spread over Snotlout's face. Since she had no interest standing around, for that was practically an invitation for Snotlout to flirt, Astrid purposelessly moved towards the mansion.

"Hey, Astrid! Beautiful! Come back here!" Snotlout called after her.

Before she could yell at him, a delighted shriek filled the air. Astrid whipped around in the direction it had come from and was met with the sight of a much younger, happier Hiccup barreling towards her. She didn't have time to move out of the way.

Much like she had ripped through Hiccup's murder without touching anything, Young Hiccup ripped through her, screaming in delight. The sound was too childish compared to what she had heard.

 _"_ _Mom! Mom!"_ Hiccup called. _"Look what I found! Mom!"_

Astrid turned around to get a better look. Hiccup's cries had gotten the twins' attention, and they scampered over, "accidentally" knocking over Snotlout in their haste to be the first to reach Astrid.

"He's so cute!" Ruffnut gushed.

Astrid glowered. "He's dead, so watch it!"

 _"_ _Mom!"_

 _"_ _What is it, Hiccup?"_ A woman Astrid recognized as Valka, Hiccup's mother, stood up from the garden bed where she had been working unseen.

 _"_ _Look what I found!"_ Hiccup skidded to a halt, kicking up dirt on Valka's skirt, but she didn't seem to mind. Hiccup held a small object in his palm up to her.

Valka took it from his hand. _"Is this what I think it is?"_

Hiccup nodded his head excitedly. _"A real dragon's scale!"_

"I don't see why that's something to be so excited about!" Snotlout muttered from behind Astrid.

She elbowed him without looking back.

 _"_ _Didn't Dad say that dragons were evil, Mom?"_ Hiccup asked, shifting from one foot to the other (Astrid noticed that both were flesh) as he waited for his mother to hand the object back.

Valka smiled, a wistful smile, and knelt down to Hiccup's level. When she next spoke, she lowered her voice, so Astrid couldn't quite hear her.

"Oh, come on!" Astrid ran forward, closer to the garden and ended up missing the first part of what Valka was saying.

 _"_ _-only misunderstood. You can keep the scale, Hiccup, but don't let your father see it."_ Valka placed the scale back in Hiccup's hand and closed his fingers around it.

"Oh, I want to see it!" Ruffnut shoved Tuffnut, who _had_ been right next to Astrid, beside and marched forward.

"No, _I_ want to see it!"

"I was born first!"

"You're uglier!" Having completely forgotten that they couldn't touch or change anything in the past, Ruffnut and Tuffnut bowled right through Valka and Young Hiccup.

 _"_ _Now, run along, Hiccup. I think you have some chores to do, don't you?"_ Valka smiled knowingly at her son.

Hiccup sagged. _"Yes, Mom."_ He started for the house.

 _"_ _You can show me your dragon caves when you've finished!"_ Valka called after him.

Hiccup let out a little exclamation of joy and ran to the mansion. Valka returned to training her tomato plants.

"That's it?!" Astrid exclaimed. What did that have to do with Hiccup's death? He had died of a knife in his father's hand, not of exhaustion from folding laundry!

"I could be combing my hair right now," Snotlout complained. "But what am I doing? Ruining my gel job by standing in the hot sun and sweating."

"Your gel job could use the improvement. If you keep it up, you'll be the only sixty-year-old bachelor in Berk," Astrid snapped, crossing her arms and staring at the mansion. How was she supposed to save Hiccup at a snail's pace?

The twins didn't seem to mind that nothing was happening because they were too busy threatening each other with tomatoes they couldn't even touch.

"This is ridiculous," Astrid muttered, referring to both the twins' and Snotlout's hair, and was just about to tell everyone off when the air shook. Shocked, Astrid stumbled forward as the air around her blurred like a tape fast forwarding.

She glanced up at Snotlout, who was experiencing the same phenomenon, and noticed that he was stumbling around like she was, although she could see him perfectly fine.

When the blurry black and white lines faded, Astrid chucked up her breakfast into the grass. It promptly dissolved into nothing. Thankfully, she recovered much more quickly than Snotlout and was awarded with the opportunity of thumping him on the back much more roughly than required.

"Adhesive astronomy!" Tuffnut cried after recovering. "That was amazing!"

Because the moon and most of the stars were hidden behind wispy clouds, the sky was dark and oppressive. An evil owl hooted somewhere off in the distance. The group, which had been spread out across the mansion's "front yard" up to that point, suddenly found themselves very close together in a penguin huddle with Astrid in the lead.

"Why are we here at night?" Ruffnut hissed in Astrid's ear, practically hugging her best friend.

"I don't know!" Astrid whispered back. She started tugging everyone towards the mansion. She didn't want to know if wild animals could eat them, even if they seemed to be invisible. "If I knew-"

The door to the mansion began to creak open. A scrawny figure, Young Hiccup, wiggled his way through the small opening and ran out to the yard. Soon after, Valka followed him, quietly calling for him to wait for her.

 _"_ _You must be very quiet,"_ she instructed, taking Hiccup's hand in hers.

Hiccup skipped merrily along, a small pack bouncing on his back. _"Why, Mom? Why couldn't we go in the day?"_

 _"_ _Because, Hiccup, dragons are best found in the dark."_ To Astrid, she sounded weary.

Still in penguin formation, the gang quietly tiptoed behind Valka and Hiccup, who unsuspectingly walked on their way. They soon ducked into a small forest, in which the twins found great delight because they didn't have to trip across gnarly roots or duck to avoid whacking their heads on branches.

"I wish I had a forest like this in my bedroom!" Ruffnut whispered in Astrid's ear.

Astrid scorned the idea. "You couldn't fit a forest in your bedroom."

"Hey, if I can run a marinated casserole buffet on the roof for a whole week, I can fit a forest in my bedroom."

"I think a headache is growing," Snotlout groaned.

"No," Astrid contradicted him. "I'm pretty sure you had your last growth spurt a couple of years ago."

As they neared their intended destination, Young Hiccup and Valka picked up the pace, so Astrid seized the opportunity to leave Snotlout in the dirt before he figured out what she had implied. Valka and Hiccup broke through the forest and pushed their way through a small opening in a stone wall and into a small clearing. A shiny lake soaked up whatever tiny tendrils of light that hit it and reflected them back out. Twisty, gnarly trees hugged the stone walls of the clearing, and a dark blob loomed at the opposite side of the lake.

"It's a secret cove!" Although she could have very easily walked through the stone walls, instinct drove her to squeeze her way through the small tunnel like Valka and Hiccup had.

Obviously bored out of his mind, Snotlout sighed and plopped down in the grass with no intent to follow them. Astrid and the twins let him sulk over the fact that he hadn't gotten a malt after all and continued on without him.

Valka was examining the wall of the cove. She ran a delicate hand over several deep gouges in the stone and rips in the vines.

 _"_ _Mom! Come here!"_ Without hesitation, Hiccup ran to the black blob, which Astrid could see better as a cave.

Hesitantly, Valka left the marks and followed Hiccup's voice. _"Did you find anything new, Hiccup?"_

 _"_ _Look! Another scale! That makes two!"_

 _"_ _I see! Impressive!"_

 _"_ _What kind of dragon do you think it belongs to?"_

Astrid couldn't hear Valka's response because they had moved too far into the cave. Frustrated at the inconvenience, she ducked underneath a rotted beam stuck in the tunnel that blocked her way and ventured forward.

"Astrid!" Tuffnut called after her. "Where are you going?"

"It's safe. Come on."

Well, the twins certainly weren't going to let their shield walk away from them. They traipsed to the mouth of the cave and peered inside.

 _"_ _Look! The rock looks like it's been scorched!"_ Hiccup was completely engrossed.

The burn mark was impressive. Apparently, Valka thought so as well because she put her hands on Hiccup's shoulders and cast a furtive glance to the far reaches of the cave. _"We must go in a second, Hiccup."_

 _"_ _But we just got here!"_ Hiccup protested. _"A few more minutes."_

 _"_ _If your father discovers we've been gone so long, he will be furious. You may find another scale before we leave."_

Obviously disappointed but understanding his mother's reasoning, Hiccup thanked her. While Hiccup ferreted around behind and under stones, Valka turned the scale over in her hand.

 _"_ _I wonder..."_ she murmured.

That was the last thing Astrid heard, besides for the twins' arguing, before the world span before her eyes again, blurring and fast forwarding.

When the world stopped revolving, she managed to keep her food in her stomach. Although he had enjoyed the ride the first time, Tuffnut clutched his stomach and stumbled against Ruffnut.

"Oh, I'm hurt! I'm very much hurt!" he cried against her shirt. Much like during the incident with the Insecticide Bar Company energy bar, he turned a dark shade of green.

Instead of sympathizing, Ruffnut shoved him away, wrinkling her nose. "You'd better not vomit all over me! I just did my once-every-three-months laundry cycle! But hey, save it so we can prank someone later."

"You two are disgusting!" Snotlout complained.

"Like your once-every-three-years-laundry cycle?" Astrid needled.

Since none of the group had noticed what room they were in, they all jumped when they heard a loud boom.

A little belatedly, the twins noticed the table laden with food before them. "Food!" As one (Tuffnut very quickly got over being sick), they dived for plates.

And promptly crashed to the floor when they passed right on through everything.

"You forgot about our transparency," Astrid reminded them unhelpfully.

"This is worse than the time we tried to find the actual diameter of a tangerine in terms of alfalfa grains!" Ruffnut sat and pouted in the middle of the table. Her head stuck up through the wood surface, but the rest of her was hidden underneath.

The double doors to the dining room swung open.

Crying "Vacate!" Tuffnut and Ruffnut scrambled out from the middle of the table. Hiccup's dad marched into the room.

Oh, how Astrid hated to see him. Her fingers curled into fist. If he hadn't killed Hiccup, everything would have been solved.

Valka and Hiccup trailed in behind him. _"It's still warm, Stoick,"_ Valka was saying. _"Cook made your favorite."_

So Stoick was his name. It fit. One had to be stoic to kill his own son.

 _"_ _Good, good."_ Stoick's massive shoulders caused the chair at the head of the table to wobble whenever he sat down. Valka sat down at the other end of the table, and Hiccup awkwardly chose a seat somewhere in between but, as Astrid noticed, closer to this mother than his father.

Awkward silence ensued.

"Hey, Astrid," Snotlout spoke loudly. Astrid wrinkled her nose and didn't reply, intent on watching the scene in front of her.

"Hey, Astrid!" Snotlout tried again.

 _"_ _So,"_ Valka began tentatively. _"How was your day, Stoick?"_

"ASTRID!"

"WHAT?!"

"Your face looks as beautiful as those mashed potatoes."

 _"_ _Good, good,"_ Stoick answered in the background. _"And how was yours?"_

"Really?" Astrid asked dangerously as she turned slowly towards him. "You think that?"

Bravado growing with every passing second, Snotlout nodded and crossed his arms, upon the bicep of one which he had drawn a skull and crossbones with a sharpie marker. It was hideous.

 _"_ _I mended your favorite shirt."_

 _"_ _Good, good."_

"I'm so glad you like the look of mashed potatoes!" Astrid beamed. "Because that's what you're going to look like, too!"

Snotlout pouted like a wounded puppy but had no effect on Astrid.

 _"_ _Will you be out tonight?"_ Valka asked, primly but forcefully cutting a section of meat into eatable portions with her fork and knife.

 _"_ _Yes. With summer, the dragons are increasing their attacks on the docks."_

The twins, Astrid noticed, had vacated. She guessed that they had probably left to explore the house looking for possible explosives, pranks, etc., although she was worried that she wouldn't be able to find them if time skipped again.

 _"_ _Why are the dragons attacking the docks, Dad?"_ Hiccup asked, looking up from his plate where he had been pushing green beans back and forth with a spoon.

 _"_ _Why?"_ Stoick paused, a fork with a heavy portion of meat halfway to his mouth. _"Because they're evil little creatures, of course! They burn and ravage for no reason,"_ he growled, _"and Berk would be better off without them!"_ He chomped down and chewed heartily on his meat.

Hiccup shot a confused look at Valka. _"But Mom said-"_

Valka interrupted and shot him a warning with her eyes. _"How about we make some popcorn tonight?"_

 _"_ _Okay!"_ Hiccup agreed, but Astrid saw the confusion.

Before the meal ended, Snotlout and Astrid were whipped forward again. This time, they stopped in a bedroom. Valka and Stoick, who was dressed up in old-fashioned Viking armor, stood at opposite sides of the walls.

 _"_ _I told you to quit filling his head with midwives' tales, Valka!"_

 _"_ _Your hate won't do him any good, Stoick!"_

 _"_ _I'll decide what's good for my own son!"_ Stoick marched from the room and slammed the door, leaving Valka to bury her head in her hands.


	17. Broken Pieces of the Pottery

**Broken Pieces of the Pottery**

The world swirled again. Sans the twins, Astrid and Snotlout found themselves back in the forest which they had trekked through in the dark, except this time it was day.

Without Hiccup, Valka ducked through trees and scrambled over rocks.

"At least she finally ditched _Hiccup,"_ Snotlout grumbled. "That pipsqueak got on my nerves."

"Oh, please. Snotlout, if you're worried about Hiccup replacing you, you _never_ had a chance in the first place. So just stop it!"

Snotlout's mouth opened and closed silently like a fish.

"I'd rather listen to Fishlegs than hear you flirt," Astrid went on. Fishlegs was Berk's resident nerd. You never asked him a question about schoolwork if you could help it because he had all the statistics and rates for _everything._ Once you got past that, he was a nice guy, but no one ever tried to.

Snotlout couldn't bear that. "But Fishlegs is a nerd! I'm a top-of-the-line athlete!"

"He'd be a better friend than you!" Now that Astrid thought about it, why _hadn't_ she ever talked to Fishlegs? Had she never given him a chance like Hiccup had never had a chance?

Valka reached the cove again with the lake and the cake. As she ducked inside the cave, a large shadow that caused Astrid and Snotlout to involuntarily duck swooped over the forest and landed at the top of the cove's cliffs.

A dragon.

Four massive red and tan wings flapped over the rocky landscape, and a tail like a bird's end flapped to help the creature keep its balance. Its body was massive: larger than the mansion and any mortal man.

Snotlout yelled in terror and would have run off in the opposite direction had not Astrid grabbed the back of his shirt. Since he had no chance to escape, he did the next best thing. He tried to pretend like he hadn't wanted to run and defend Astrid.

"ARGH!" Letting out a weak (in Astrid's opinion) roar, Snotlout snatched up a club-like stick and hurled it like a mace at the dragon. It took him a second to realize he hadn't picked it up or thrown it after all and that the past had struck again.

"For crying out loud!" Snotlout was none too happy, but he didn't have to worry about being eaten for long. The dragon abandoned its perch and dove into the cove.

"Come on, Snotlout!" Astrid raced to the mouth of the cave, fully expecting to see the event that had turned Valka into a ghost.

The dragon was circling around Valka, who had exited the cave. She was saying/half begging with the dragon, although her words were not discernible.

"She's going to die!" Snotlout hissed. For once in his life, he was worried about something besides his hair or his muscles.

Astrid couldn't contradict him. A horrible feeling welled up inside of her, much like when she'd watched Hiccup die.

Snotlout was frozen in panic.

"I don't think we want to see this." Astrid' voice was quiet – a Hofferson's voice was _never_ quiet.

"Uh. Is that supposed to be happening?" Snotlout sounded puzzled.

Having turned away from the event, Astrid peeked over her shoulder, and her jaw dropped.

The dragon wasn't killing Valka. Instead, it was acting like a curious dog or kitten. It lay on its stomach and stared at her, head on massive paws.

Astrid grinned because it reminded her of Toothless. Her heart rate slowed to a reasonable pace. "It's okay, Snotlout," she told him as the world whirled around them. "They're going to be friends."

And they were. Scenes of a developing deep friendship slipped by them, and each one of them made Astrid smile. What bond could be closer than that between a human and a dragon?

When the world cleared once more, she and Snotlout were back in the middle of the boggy field that they had first entered the past in. Tuffnut and Ruffnut ran towards them, waving their arms and whooping like Native Americans. Astrid was quite relieved that they were back and in once piece.

"Heeeyyyooo!" Ruffnut crowed. "We have been stalking Hiccup!" She flung herself to the ground in front of Astrid and Snotlout and smiled up at the sky. "I'm hungry!"

"I'm hungry first!" Tuffnut flopped right on top of his twin, and they started wrestling one another to decide who was hungry.

Since Snotlout had no inclination to help her, Astrid pulled the twins apart by herself and held them each at arm's length. "What did you see? Tell me." If the twins had seen something else, then it was definitely important.

"He's not liked, that's for sure!" Ruffnut declared as she and Tuffnut grabbed Astrid's hands and began running in a circle, spinning her between them.

"Cut it out!" Astrid tried to tug her arms loose. "What do you mean by that?"

"Hiccup's lonely," Tuffnut drew the word out. "And we couldn't even chase anybody! What's the fun in that? Hey, do you think they have llamas around here somewhere? I could go for some llama meat. Ruffnut, I have our next video!"

"Would you please clarify?" Astrid was beginning to be very, very dizzy.

The twins were not into helping her at all. "It might be a tad difficult to get a llama, Tuffnut," Ruffnut chattered, "but we could _totally_ fry up some frogs. Or maybe toads would be better, because don't they serve frog legs at restaurants? Hey! Frog legs! Fishlegs! We should ask him what he eats for dinner!"

Triumphantly, Astrid released herself from their grasps. "Tell me about Hiccup," she offered, " _and I'll help you capture the toads and some salamanders to go with them."_

Everything stopped. "You will? There's got to be a catch..." Tuffnut eyes her shrewdly. "What's the catch?"

"You've got to tell me what you saw about Hiccup, obviously," Astrid reminded him. "Spill."

"Well, Hiccup ran off to that village over there-" Ruffnut stabbed her thumb backwards in the general direction she was speaking of. "-and he wanted to play some of the games that the other boys were playing, but they wouldn't let him."

"So they beat him up and sent him home. Lots," Tuffnut finished for his twin.

"Lots," Ruffnut agreed.

Snotlout sniffed. "I _knew_ he didn't have as many muscles as I do." Without asking if anyone wanted a demonstration (they didn't), he rolled up the sleeve of his already short-sleeve shirt and flex this way, then that way.

"Those boys had twice your muscles, Snotlout," Ruffnut mercilessly informed him. "I think they actually lift weights."

Had a rock been nearby, Snotlout's head probably would have found its way to it.

"So you're telling me Hiccup doesn't have any friends and that he's lonely," Astrid concluded. Getting information out of the twins was like trying to clip a dog's nails. There were a lot of whimpering, distractions, pulling, and threats.

"Yeah," the twins said in unison, obviously bored with Hiccup, already.

A dark shadow passed over the sun, and everyone's heads turned to the sky. Valka and her dragon were flying at breakneck speed. Over the rush of the wind, they could hear Valka shouting one phrase:

 _"_ _Faster, Cloudjumper! Faster!"_

Tuffnut and Ruffnut melted into pools of envy.

"I want a dragon!"

"That's so cool!"

"I could go _way_ more faster!"

"I'd still beat you!"

"No way!"

Before their very eyes, the sky turned to night. Valka and Cloudjumper appeared in the branches of a very sturdy old pine. Plainly, Cloudjumper cared for Valka a lot.

Suddenly, a young child's voice carried across the field.

 _"_ _Mom? Mom!"_

Valka tensed. _"No."_

"That's Hiccup, if you couldn't tell!" Ruffnut broke away from her argument with Tuffnut to inform Astrid and Snotlout, the latter of which could have cared less.

As Hiccup drew nearer, the moon broke from behind the cloud coverage Cloudjumper and Valka had been using to hide their midnight flying. When he ran on past them, Astrid got a good look at his face. It was covered with a myriad of bruises and a dark purple black eye.

With no time for her dragon to hide, Valka jumped down from the tree and went to meet her son. _"Hiccup!"_ she called softly. _"What happened to your face? You shouldn't be outside, not with your father away."_

 _"_ _Is that a dragon?"_ Awe filled Hiccup's face.

Valka hesitated, all the answer Hiccup needed. _"I've always wanted to meet a dragon! What's his name?"_

 _"_ _Cloudjumper,"_ Valka answered. Without hesitation, Hiccup approached the tree. _"Is he scared of me?"_

 _"_ _Cloudjumper isn't scared of anyone, Hiccup, only hesitant. Hold out your hand."_ Valka relaxed a little.

The dragon raised its head. If Valka wasn't scared by the little human, it wasn't going to be. Astrid held her breath as Hiccup grew closer and closer to Cloudjumper. Where was Toothless? Why wasn't Hiccup making friends with him?

Cloudjumper sniffed Hiccup's offered palm and liked what if found. He noised Hiccup's hand, and Hiccup shrieked softly in delight.

Snotlout, of course, had to break in and say something. "Now they've made friends. Can we go to the drugstore now?"

"No. Now shush. I'm trying to listen."

"Why don't you tell the twins to shush for once?"

"Shhh!"

 _"_ _May I have a dragon?"_ Hiccup asked. He scratched Cloudjumper on the nose, and the dragon purred in pleasure. _"Are there other dragons?"_

Before answering, Valka caught eyes with Cloudjumper. The dragon gave a small nod.

 _"_ _Yes."_

And everything changed.

…

Toothless looked the same when Hiccup first met him as when Astrid had met him. Clearly, Valka was very familiar with dragons. The past hadn't shown the gang what it was showing them now.

A nest. Filled with dragons.

It drove the twins mad that so much speed was right in front of them. It drove Hiccup mad that so many dragons were right in front of him, but none wanted to bond.

 _"_ _It take time, Hiccup,"_ his mother gently reminded him.

Hiccup's shoulders sag. Only by looking at him, Astrid can tell that he loves dragons. What began in his mother was given to him. If anything, he understood them better. Together, they danced in the skies on the backs of dragons.

 _"_ _Promise me this will last forever, Mom."_ Hiccup begged her as they flew.

Valka smiled. _"I promise, Hiccup. We'll fly together always."_

It was too wonderful and too perfect to last.

Noticing how distracted his wife and son were (one of the few things that managed to catch his attention about his home life), Stoick began to stay closer to home and quit going on so many trips to check stockades against the dragons.

Astrid, the twins, and Snotlout watched as he snapped at people and grew crabby. Hiccup spent all his time with the dragons and avoided all humans besides his mother and the cook as much as possible.

The atmosphere of the past affected even the twins. Their normally happy, energetic attitudes deflated, and they moped around making sarcastic comments. They wanted a place where they could cause pranks.

Everything hanged on a thread in sour anticipation.

Finally, the past zoomed them to watch Valka and Hiccup sneaking out of the house in the middle of the afternoon to go visit the dragons.

"Not this again," Ruffnut complained. "We've already seen this, like, a gazillion times. Can't we be shown something new for once?"

"Yeah," Tuffnut agreed readily. "How about a nice Viking battle or something relaxing like that?"

"I could go for a wrestling match," Snotlout said.

"I didn't know Vikings wrestled," Ruffnut piped in.

Tuffnut rolled his eyes as if his sister had declared two plus two equaled four. "Ugh. _Everybody_ knows that, Ruffnut!"

"Well, I didn't!"

"You should have!"

"Just like you told me to do the cinnamon challenge?" The twins were nose to nose now, yelling in each other's faces.

"You made _me_ pay the insurance for the damages to your neighbor's toaster!" Snotlout broke in. "Do I look like I'm made of money?"

"You act like it!" Astrid shot at him.

"YOU'VE GOT THE FACE OF AN ORCHID!"

"WE'RE TWINS, SO YOU HAVE THE FACE OF A BOAR'S BRISTLE, TOO!"

With no point, the shouting match very well would have continued until the twins lost their voices and Snotlout found nothing to complain about. Unfortunately, it ended abruptly as Stoick charged through them, a battle ax that Astrid recognized from the mansion's walls in his hand.


	18. Scattered, Shattered, on the Rock

**Scattered, Shattered, Like Pottery on Rock**

 ***WARNING* DESCRIPTION OF DEATH! DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE A QUEASY PERSON! READ AT OWN RISK. *WARNING***

 **YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**

"Tuffnut, I do not have a good feeling in my gizzard about this," Ruffnut told him.

Tuffnut frowned. "Your gizzard hasn't been working for years."

Clearly, Ruffnut was not pleased about the cut to her gizzard. "How would you know? Yours has always been susceptible to yachts."

"Guys, could you please find another time to argue about whose gizzard is the most messed up?" Astrid requested as she ran after Stoick. For a middle-aged man, he was remarkably swift and ducked between branches with ease. He was heading straight in the direction Valka and Hiccup had headed, which wasn't good if Astrid had interpreted his views on dragons correctly.

If only she could warn them! If Astrid hadn't been running, she would have punched the nearest thing to let off energy.

As her friend caught up with her, Astrid came to a screeching halt. Stoick was at the wall to the cove. Already, she could see the shadow of Cloudjumper because he was perched on the rim of the enclosure with Hiccup and Valka.

 _"_ _Valka! Get away from that beast before it kills you!"_ Stoick began to scramble up the rough side of the wall, his ax in hand, ready to fight. Shale cascaded down to the ground as he tried to find his footing and propel himself upwards.

 _"_ _Stoick! No!"_ Valka shoved Hiccup behind her. _"What are you doing here?!"_

 _"_ _Get away from my wife!"_ Stoick growled at Cloudjumper.

 _"_ _Listen, Stoick-"_

 _"_ _Dad!"_

Cloudjumper's voice drowned out Hiccup's cry. Almost to the top of the cliff side, Stoick roared back at him.

Valka tried to shove Cloudjumper away, but the dragon refused to leave her.

"Move!" Astrid screamed at him, waving her arms, but he couldn't see or hear her.

 _"_ _Don't do anything-"_ Valka started.

Battle ax raised above his head, Stoick lunged. The accident happened so quickly.

Once instant, Valka was attempting to stop Stoick by stepping in between him and Cloudjumper. The next instant, Valka was gone, and Hiccup and Cloudjumper screamed.

The twins beat Astrid to the cliff's edge. Upon looking down, Ruffnut turned to the side and retched.

"Is it bad?" Snotlout called fearfully from behind them.

"Bad" was the worst understatement Astrid had ever heard. Valka's prone form lay at an awkward, twisted angle on the ground against some rocks.

Red. Everywhere.

Carefully, and feeling like vomiting herself, Astrid pulled Ruffnut, who was sobbing into her brother's sleeve, away from the edge.

"She was..." Tuffnut's words trailed off, but Astrid knew what he was thinking.

She was just alive. She had been laughing with Hiccup on the clouds. Flying with Cloudjumper and whatever dragon had chosen to ferry Hiccup for the day.

She had _promised_ Hiccup they would fly together forever.

"You can't fly with someone if you're dead," Snotlout stated stupidly, in shock.

Tuffnut patted his sister on the back as he stared off into space.

The reactions around them weren't much better. Stoick stood, his hands limply by his sides, staring at what he had just done. Hiccup and Cloudjumper scrambled down the way Stoick had come to reach Valka.

Sobbing, Hiccup reached her first. _"Mom! Mom, wake up! Mom!"_

When he saw that Cloudjumper was headed towards Valka, Stoick shook himself from his trance. _"Get away from her!"_ With all of his might, he threw the ax that was still in his hand. It twirled through the air and landed in Cloudjumper's side. Unable to say goodbye to his human friend, the dragon roared in pain. With great flaps of his wings, he rose into the sky and flew off.

 _"_ _Come back!"_ Hiccup looked up from his dead mother. _"Come back!"_

The dragon never returned again.


	19. Film for Thought

**Film for Thought**

The twins, Snotlout, and Astrid were transported to the boggy land to the side of the mansion where they witness a mound in the ground and a stone.

Unashamedly and uncharacteristically, Ruffnut was still crying into her brother's shirt. "I don't like the past anymore! I want to go home! I want Snotlout to get his comb!" She flung an arm out. "That's how badly I'm disturbed, Astrid!"

Everyone was still upset, including Astrid. "Well, it's not like I can do anything to get us out of here! We have to stick it out until we've seen everything!"

"I've seen enough!"

Snotlout and Tuffnut muttered their agreements. Snotlout crossed his arms, and Tuffnut scuffed his shoe in the ground.

"There's nothing I can do!"

"You could do something besides nothing!" Snotlout shouted back.

Astrid fumed. Anger was affecting all of them. In the mansion, to find the ghost had been a fun game, yet being in the ghost's past wasn't as thrilling. Quite the opposite, in fact. Everyone wanted to go home.

Astrid tugged on her braid and shifted from foot to foot. "I can't do anything," she stated simply. "So we're going to have to face this like Vikings! Who's with me?"

Silence greeted her call to action.

"I _said_ who's with me!"

"Fine," Snotlout grumbled.

Ruffnut flapped her hand half heartedly. "Sure."

"Not like we've got anything better to do at the moment."

"That's the spirit!" Astrid clapped Tuffnut, who was closest, on the back. "Now-"

After the swirling that they had grown so accustomed to, they found themselves in the middle of a huge arena. Half a dozen doors lines the gargantuan circle sides, which reminded Astrid a little bit of the cove, only much more sinister. From behind the log-blocked door, unknown things rattled and fought to break free.

The stone floor to the enclosure was covered in scratches and dark stains that made Astrid recall Valka's grisly death. _Don't look at the floor,_ she told herself.

A large door at one side of the circle screamed and screeched open with a rattling slam. Although the twins were used to such startling noises, Snotlout jumped a foot in the air.

Stoick and Hiccup walked into the room. Stoick's hand rested heavily on Hiccup's shoulder, and Astrid had a feeling that if it had not been there, Hiccup wouldn't have been there either.

The happy little boy who had run with Valka to explore with dragons was gone. Under his eyes hung dark circles, and he was frowning.

 _"_ _Some day, Hiccup, you will have to step up and become a warrior. You will avenge your mother's death."_

 _"_ _That dragon didn't kill her."_

Anger crinkled Stoick's face. _"Are you saying that I did?"_

The argument was clearly one they had had many times before. Hiccup looked down at the ground. _"No,"_ he answered shortly.

 _"_ _I'm going to teach you all about the dragons we've captured and how to kill them. First, we have the hideous Zippleback. Its attack is-"_

 _"_ _Twelve. Speed, ten. Armor, ten. Firepower, fourteen. Shot limit six. No venom. Jaw strength six. Stealth, twenty-two,"_ Hiccup recited.

Pleasure interrupted Stoick's scowl. " _Good work...memorizing. Now, how would you go about disabling the dragon?"_

Out of the corner of Astrid's eye, she noticed the twins were doing something odd. Standing a little ways off in the area from the group, they were shouting things and waving their arms in the air.

"-And we won't touch anything, we promise!"

"We all knew it was coming," Snotlout stated, matter-of-factly. "The day the twins finally went off the deep end into the ocean."

"If they hadn't already!" Astrid remarked. "Tuffnut! Ruffnut! What are you doing?"

While Tuffnut kept on begging, Ruffnut took a break to answer them. "We figured that if Astrid asked the house to transport us to the past, then it can give us what we want, too."

Astrid eyed her warily. "And what is that?"

"To pull pranks, of course."

"You are _not_ going to be wrecking havoc in the past, Ruffnut. It's not some powerful supernatural being that can give you whatever you want." Over her dead body. If some sense didn't enter their brains soon, she was going to knock it in.

Ruffnut dismissed it. "Of course we are. And if we're in the past, we're in the past, and there's nothing the past can do to stop us from being in the past."

"That was so dumb and made no sense. _This whole thing_ is so dumb," Snotlout complained. "It's not like it's even going to work."

At Snotlout's words, a ripple ran through the air.

"If that worked, I hope that I'm included," Snotlout, who had just been proclaiming how dumb it was, commented.

"It won't," Astrid said confidently. "No way, Hosea."

A rock bounced and hit her in the forehead. "TUFFNUT!" she roared, marching towards him.

"It worked! It worked!" He high-fived his sister. "It actually worked! Now, let's go up to Stoick over there and show him who's who!"

Astrid had completely forgotten about Stoick with the twins' crazy stunt. "You'd better not do anything stupid. We don't want any lasting consequences."

"Relax, Hoff! We're only going to..." Ruffnut's words trailed off in disappointment as Tuffnut charged at Stoick, jumped into a tackle, and sailed through the older man. "Well, rats," she declared.

Tuffnut nursed his wounds. "I am hurt! I am so very hurt!"

"A scraped knee. You'll die," Snotlout said sarcastically. "Does this mean that I can find some hair products now?"

"I doubt they have what you're accustomed to, Snotlout," Astrid replied. "I'm sure we can find some bear grease around here somewhere."

"Ha ha ha. You'll regret those words."

"I doubt it." Astrid swiped her finger across the stone wall of the area. It came away with tiny flecks of dirt. "I guess the twins' got their wish."

"So what are we going to do now?" Snotlout asked.

…

Three votes were cast for stalking Hiccup.

One vote was cast for remaining where they were.

Snotlout was not pleased.

"I don't want to follow a puny little kid as he treks across the mountains!" Despite being out of breath, Snotlout had no trouble complaining as he lagged behind Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Astrid as they climbed higher on the rocky hill.

"It's not a mountain, per se," Astrid told him. "Think of it as testing those muscles you're always bragging about."

"Why _did_ Hiccup have to pick the rockiest, steepest hill to climb?" Ruffnut asked, sending a rock or two in her brother's direction with her shoe. He was going to regret climbing behind her.

Astrid used Snotlout's head for leverage to heave herself higher. "Well, after seeing what we and he did, I wouldn't be hurrying to go back to the cove." In the muggy summer air, she shivered.

For generally not being an athletic kind of Viking, Hiccup was making good time on the slope. He'd obviously been in the direction before, for he headed where he was going with purpose, but he hadn't been there _often,_ because he had to retrace his steps once.

The "hill's" wall slowly changed into a ninety degree angle. Everyone including Hiccup had difficulty climbing, but he never gave up. The reason was soon revealed.

In the side of the cliff was embedded a dark cave, much like the one back at the cove. With relief, the twins found a precarious shelf to stand on while they spied on Hiccup. They were not disappointed with their choice of entertainment.

To be perfectly clear, Hiccup was sitting cross-legged on the edge of a cliff.

The twins took great twisted delight in this.

"Let it never be said that the twins were a smudge to Loki!" Ruffnut proclaimed, scooping up the nearest pine cone.

Twins + Pine cones = TROUBLE.

"Ruffnut!" Astrid hissed. "You're going to kill him!"

"Nah," Tuffnut dismissed her. "Seriously injure, yes. Kill, no."

"I'll tell your mother," Snotlout threatened nastily, grouchy from having to sit between the twins, nowhere next to Astrid, on a very tiny piece of rock.

This gave Ruffnut and Tuffnut pause. "You wouldn't dare," Ruffnut said, a pine cone still in her hand.

"I would." Snotlout was quite enjoying his power of the threat. "I'll tell her all about Uncle Eddie and the handcuffs he gave you."

The twins held conference for a couple of seconds before dropping the pine cones over the side of the cliff.

During this whole ordeal, Hiccup had not moved at all. Under his breath, he muttered words that Astrid had to strain to hear.

 _"_ _My mother had a dragon. Well, not exactly had. They were more like best friends. His name is Cloudjumper. Since my mother died, I haven't seen him, but I know he is alive somewhere."_

"We've got to find blackmail on Snotlout," Ruffnut grumbled to her brother. "He can't just boss us around like that."

"We could find an embarrassing baby photo!" Tuffnut suggested. "One of those really awkward ones with a bunch of cloth in the background-"

"I can't hear him over you guys!" Astrid complained. "Could you be any louder?"'

"Sure! SNOTLOUT, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" Tuffnut grabbed Snotlout's ear lobe and yelled into it.

Snotlout shoved him away. "I don't want your spit in my ear!"

Astrid threw her hands up in exasperation. "That's not what I meant!"

 _"_ _I saw black dragon scales like yours in the cove. Have you met Cloudjumper?"_

Slowly, like a snake emerging from its nest, a black head poked out of the cave. Astrid recognized Toothless immediately. His black nose was the same soft-but-harsh shape she had seen whenever he'd chased her around. This was not the Toothless, Hiccup's friend. This was Toothless, the enemy, a feral dragon that would kill.

"-and I still we get that baby ARGH!" Ruffnut screeched. "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! HICCUP, MOVE!" She grabbed the nearest pine cone and hurled it a Toothless's head.

"That's not going to do any good!" Astrid grabbed the back of Ruffnut's shirt before she could topple off the cliff. She didn't know if they could die if they fell, but she wasn't going to take that chance.

Toothless growled low in his throat as he approached Hiccup, who calmly went on talking. _"You came out last week, too. I missed talking to you. Did you eat all of the fish that I left?"_

"He's _going_ to eat you, you stupid Viking!" Ruffnut cried. "Run away while you still have time to film it!"

"I think he's well aware of that!"

"Thor's Thunder!" Tuffnut yelled gleefully. "Why didn't you say so sooner, Ruffnut?"

Maneuvering very awkwardly on the stone shelf, Tuffnut attempted to remove something from the pocket of his jeans. When he didn't find whatever he was looking for there, he braced one arm against Snotlout, nearly pushing him off, and fished around in his shoe.

"Argch!" Snotlout protested, unable to say more than that because Tuffnut's hand was in his mouth.

"Arhch indeed!" Tuffnut triumphantly waved the object he'd retrieved from his sock in the air. "My phone, Monsieur!"

"That has a pink phone case," Snotlout pointed out gleefully. "Wouldn't that be hilarious over the entire school! Tuffnut Thorsen has a _girl's phone!"_

"Ruffnut!" Tuffnut screeched.

While all of this was going on, Toothless had, centimeter by centimeter, been inching from the recesses of the dark cave. Even though Astrid knew how Hiccup had died, the thought of him facing an unfriendly Toothless sent butterflies through her stomach.

 _"_ _You don't have to be afraid,"_ Hiccup said. _"I'm not like them."_ He finally moved. Turning _away_ from the dragon that looked like he was considering eating him for lunch, he held up one hand in the air.

The choice was Toothless's.

Out of the corner of her eye, Astrid saw Tuffnut holding up his phone.

Toothless touched his nose into Hiccup's palm.


	20. Several Scenes of Significance

**Several Scenes of Significance**

"Ba boom! They're friends! Isn't that cute? Tuffnut, film some more," Ruffnut demanded.

"I already did. My phone is going to lose storage space if you keep this up!" Tuffnut shot back.

"But it's _so cute!"_

Astrid held a blade of grass up to her nose and sniffed. It definitely made her want to sneeze, so she held it up under Snotlout's nose and enjoyed the impending sneeze reaction.

Toothless and Hiccup were also experiencing the effects of the grass. Since Toothless had decided Hiccup was better as a companion than as lunch, they'd gone flying together many times as the gang watched. This time, however, the duo had tried a stunt that hadn't worked out so well and ended up in a field of the weirdest-smelling grass.

"Oooooohh, Tuffnut, get it!"

"Pull out your own phone, Ruffnut!"

Toothless loved it. He was rolling on his back in the long stalks and having the time of his life. Dislodged from the saddle he'd made for Toothless, Hiccup was untangling himself from all the "safety precautions" he'd thought best.

"Hiccup, Hiccup, Hiccup," Snotlout grumbled, rubbing his nose rather disgustingly. "The twins never whipped out their phones to video _me,_ and I'm a whole lot cuter than that thousand-pound black hole for fish."

Astrid snorted. She wasn't sure which one was greater: Toothless's devouring of fish or Snotlout's application of hair accessories. She dug her fingers into the grass and tore out a stalk. She wanted to weave it into something, but her grass-tying skills were non-existent. Later in the past, however, Hiccup had a better use for it. In the dragon training arena, he disarmed a Gronkle (as his stats informed them) with it.

…

Hiccup was trying to figure out what was wrong with his shield while the twins attempted to take it away from him. Neither side was winning.

 _"_ _The bolts keep falling out at the worst times, Bud."_ Hiccup grimaced. _"_ _Then again, maybe it's not such of a bad thing. Why does Dad have to keep bragging about how great I am 'defeating dragons'?"_

Without withdrawing his head from the bag of fish he was devouring, Toothless snorted.

"Hold still!" Ruffnut attempted to clamp her hands down on the shield. Thankfully, Astrid had gotten rid of Snotlout, who, after discovering she wasn't going to stand for him putting his arm around her, went over to a puddle of water to admire his new, rapidly forming black eye. Either that or his hair. Ruffnut and Tuffnut soon lost interest in the shield and went to terrorize Snotlout's puddle of water.

 _"_ _I heard that,"_ Hiccup warned Toothless. _"_ _Don't think that I didn't, you overgrown lump of black scales."_

That brought Toothless's head out of the bag to mock growl at him.

 _"_ _Yeah, yeah, yeah."_ Hiccup fiddled a bit with the shield, turning it at just the right angle so that a beam of light brighter than normal sunshine hit the ground a foot away from Toothless's head. Instantly, the dragon's ears perked up, and his head swiveled towards it.

Hiccup moved the shield again, which in turn moved Toothless's head. Within a few seconds, the dragon completely forgotten the basket of fish Hiccup had brought him and pounced on the light beam. If he was expecting to catch something, he was disappointed.

A deep, dark growl rose up in his throat, drawing Hiccup's attention. _"_ _What's wrong, Bud?"_ Again, he moved the shield, and seeing the light, Toothless dove after it. As he caught onto what was happening, Hiccup grinned. Like a cat, Toothless chased after the speck of light, just like the dragons in the dragon area would later.

…

Dinnertime in the Haddock household was awkward. Tired from standing a lot as she watched Hiccup and Toothless, Astrid beat Snotlout to the nearest seat. She messed around with the silverware, which the twins pocketed for later, unscrupulous uses, and wondering that if she went to the kitchen, would she be able to eat anything she might find. The twins were affecting her. She was hungry.

Looking like he'd rather be anywhere but there, Hiccup sat at one of the ends of the table with his father. Downright miserable, he stirred his soup with a spoon that was too large for his hand.

 _"_ _And when you kill your first dragon! There's nothing like that feeling, Hiccup. One day, you'll experience it, eh?"_ With the hand that wasn't holding a leg of meat, he jovially thwacked Hiccup on the shoulder, nearly sending him into his soup.

When he recovered from a carrot up the nose, Hiccup shrugged. _"_ _Sure, Dad,"_ he agreed glumly. Astrid noticed the knuckles of his fingers turned white from gripping the handle of his spoon hard.

 _"_ _I must tell you, I thought there was no hope, but you've been performing excellently in the dragon arena! You have this way with the beasts. I'm proud of you."_

Hiccup flinched.

"If only," Ruffnut sighed dramatically, "we could get out of doing schoolwork the same way."

"Life would be much easier with logarithms," Snotlout added. School was one of the few subjects he and the twins actually agreed upon.

Hiccup looked downright sick to his stomach, and he didn't even have to deal with logarithms. Obviously, his father didn't know that Hiccup's newfound talent with dragons was the result of befriending one.

…

Quite oblivious to his master's problems, Toothless batted at his leg, begging for a scratch. Even though he was dejected and downcast, Hiccup gave into the dragon's pleading eyes and started vigorously scratching him. When his hands got to Toothless's jaw, the dragon's eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed. Hiccup chortled.

 _"_ _Was that a bit too much for your dragonness?"_

Toothless growled and batted at him again.

…

Stoick seemed to think that now that Hiccup was good at "fighting" dragons, he would be interested in his father's vocation. This assumption was wrong, but that didn't help Hiccup escape from the torture of listening to Stoick drone on about dragon attacks.

 _"_ _Whoever proves him or herself the best in the last session of dragon training will have the honor of fighting in the next dragon raid,"_ Stoick announced, visually expecting some sort of response from Hiccup.

Hiccup looked up from his plate. _"Woo hoo,"_ he mock cheered.

His sarcasm flew straight over his father's head and into the void where most of his sarcastic comments disappeared.

 _"_ _Good work in the arena today, Hiccup."_ Stoick practically hummed with self-conceited pleasure. It was sickening to know that he was so out of tune with what Hiccup was doing, but then again, did Astrid really want him to know?

"Is that pickled duck leg?" Tuffnut, eye-to-eye with an example of Stoick's odd palate, held a piece of meat up between his thumb and second finger.

"Oh, we should get our mom to cook some of this!" Ruffnut grabbed the piece of of Tuffnut's hand and dropped it whole into her mouth.

"Didn't your mother tell you to cut things into smaller bites?" Astrid asked, watching an alarmingly big bulge travel down Ruffnut's throat.

"It looks like someone's brains!" Snotlout complained. "Who would want to stick that in their mouth?"

Silence reigned as everyone remembered what had happened to Valka. Ruffnut choked on the rest of the goose leg that hadn't gone down her throat. To clear the image from her brain, Astrid rubbed her eyes vigorously.

…

Before, when the gang had been privy to the teens of Berk's dragon training, the arena seats above them had been empty. Now, hundred of people from the village shook the iron bars and yelled their hearts out at the children gathered below them.

"What is this?" Tuffnut asked. Getting into the spirit around him, he began hopping up and down and waving his arms back and forth, just like he did at Berk High's football games. Chest paint and a clown wig were the only things missing from the picture.

 _"_ _Ergh!"_

On the outside of the arena, Stoick stood up on a platform and raised his hands for silence. After a few minutes, they gave it to him.

 _"_ _Who would have imagined that we are here today?"_ Stoick began. _"If anyone had told me that Hiccup would be one of today's finalists, I would have tied him to a ship and sent him off for fear of him gone mad!"_

The crowd roared with laughter. So did Snotlout, until Astrid elbowed him in the gut and cut off his air supply.

 _"_ _But here we are!"_

"Will he quit saying where we are?" Ruffnut complained. "I know where I am, and I don't need him to tell me it five times!"

"He doesn't know that." Although why Astrid was standing up for Stoick, of all people, she didn't know.

Stoick threw his mighty arms into the air. _"Let the dragon training finals begin!"_

The members of the crowd through back their heads and roared with him, true Vikings. They stampeded to the edges of the viewing area and eagerly stared down at the two teens below.

Hiccup and another Viking Astrid only recognized from other scenes in the area stood five feet apart in the middle of the circular structure.

The chains holding a door shut at the end of the area opposite them rattled. An unknown enemy lurked behind their confines, ready to devour its opponents.

When the chains were released, it leaped out of its rocky confinement.

"Moldy Midgard!"

Of course the twins loved this form of entertainment. Shouting with glee, they fit perfectly into the crowd.

The dragon shared none of the sentiment. He was raging mad from having been captured by humans and shoved into a dark and dank cage for weeks on end. The Monstrous Nightmare wanted revenge.

"It's on fire!" Ruffnut waved her hands in the air. "Look at all those flames!"

"Do you think I could get a tan from that heat?" Snotlout asked, interested.

The other teen in the ring besides Hiccup did not wait around for the Monstrous Nightmare to decide which way he was going to cut them up and boil them. Raising her ax high above her head and letting out a fearsome cry, she rushed towards the dragon. While she did this, Hiccup slunk around the back way. Since Astrid knew Hiccup like she did, she saw this for what it was. Hiccup would never allow a dragon to be killed.

The dragon tried to engage the girl in warfare and sniff Hiccup at the same time. Since it couldn't do both effectively at once, Hiccup was able to start scratching it, eventually reaching that special spot below its jaw.

Just as the girl's ax started swinging downwards, the dragon collapsed at her and Hiccup's feet.

 _"_ _Um."_ Hiccup gestured at the dragon. _"There's really no need to do that now..."_

Pleased at the performance, the crowd roared its approval. Sure, no blood had been split, but who didn't love a display of Viking dominance?

To amuse herself while everyone got over their excitement, Astrid ripped her braid out and began to comb through her hair with her fingers.

An older Viking hobbled out into the arena on a peg leg and waved an arm in the air for silence. _"Hey, quiet now! Do you want to hear the elder's choice or not?"_

Someone in the crowd booed. _"She hasn't spoken for years, and you know it, Sven!"_

Nevertheless, everyone waited anxiously for the grey-haired, ancient-looking lady to make her decision. Sven held a hand over the girl's head, but the elder shook her head now. In disbelief, Sven held up his other hand over Hiccup's head.

The elder nodded. Hiccup had been chosen.

Despite this triumph, he looked less than thrilled.


	21. Shoes Lose

_A/n: I believe that there are only four chapters after this one..._

 **Shoes Lose**

"We have a problem," Ruffnut announced.

"I'll say," Astrid agreed. "Hiccup couldn't kill a dragon to save his life. For one, he doesn't have the arm muscles, two-"

"I completely agree!" Snotlout dropped down to the floor and began doing girl push ups. "Look at me!"

" _As I was saying_ before I was so rudely interrupted, Hiccup loves dragons. If he ever killed one, he would never forgive himself."

Ruffnut scratched the top of her head. "Well, that is a major problem, but it wasn't exactly the one I was talking about."

"Huh?" Astrid crossed her arms. "What could be worse than that?"

"Ruffnut." Tuffnut carefully made sure they knew which twin was the cause of the problem. "She tied our shoelaces together into a knot that neither of us can get out."

Ruffnut huffed and shoved him none too gently on the shoulder, nearly sending them both toppling over onto Snotlout, who was still at it. "I did not! That was your fault and you know it. _You_ were the one bragging about your supposedly amazing knot-tying skills."

"You were the one who offered up our shoes to be test subjects!"

"I didn't know you were going to tie us together forever!" Ruffnut shot back. They were nose to nose, eye to eye.

"We're _twins!_ We're _supposed_ to be together!" Tuffnut reasoned, shoving Ruffnut backwards to get her out of his face. He forgot about the shoe problem, so it didn't do much good.

"You think that logic is going to work on me?" Ruffnut shoved him back.

"You're asking for a banana in your pillowcase!" Giving the hardest shove, Tuffnut made himself and his sister trip over Snotlout, who was still attempting to impress anyone who wished to be impressed: the grass, the dirt, and perhaps even the bumblebee buzzing around his head, although that might have been a long shot. It was mostly likely just looking for a prime location to sting him. Astrid wished it would so he would quit.

Astrid sighed, a great, deep sigh that could only come from being in the past with the three craziest Vikings in the world, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was beginning to want to go home. Would they ever see all they were meant to see so they could understand Hiccup?

What was the point of being stuck when they couldn't save him _now? Could_ they even save him by understanding him? _How_ could they understand him? Sledge hammers started beating a horrendous tattoo behind her eyes.

Sulking, Astrid kicked a nearby stone. The past had deposited them on the outskirts of a town, and as much as she appreciated the change in scenery from the mansion and forests and whatnot, she did not like waiting around, doing nothing and watching Snotlout turn as red as a tomato.

The color of a vegetable did not become him. Or was it a fruit?

Shielding her eyes, Astrid eyed the twins rolling in the dirt and _almost_ asked them whether they knew if a tomato was a fruit or a vegetable. She closed her mouth. She wouldn't admit to them that she didn't know such a simple thing. Her biology teacher would be so disappointed in her.

The bee stung Snotlout.

"Ow! I'll get you, you little-" He never got to finish what evil curses he was going to rain down on the poor innocent bee that had taken him for a mortal enemy. The twins, still trying to either kill or permanently maim each other while they were still attached by their shoes, crashing into him, and he was stuck between their "claws."

As much as Astrid would have liked to ignore them (the past had proven that getting in the middle of the twins' brawls could result in a fingernail to the eye), this was not going to resolve anytime soon without her intervention. The sun was setting, and Astrid wanted to see what was going to happen.

Astrid let loose a whistle. "Break it up! Break it up!" She put one foot on Snotlout and heaved the twins up with both of her hands, twisting their t-shirts to get their attention.

"Hey, you're cutting off my air!" Tuffnut gasped. "Help! Murder! Choking!"

"Tuffnut, you were about to kill your sister," Astrid pointed out. "Do you really want to call attention to your own crime?"

"Nonsense! She was the one trying to eliminate me!" Tuffnut narrowed his eyes across Astrid at Ruffnut. "In fact, I bet she was trying to take over to be the first in line for the Thorsen inheritance!"

Ruffnut stuck out her tongue. "I'm _already_ older that you by, like, five minutes, so what would be the purpose?"

"Gerrof me!"

Astrid had quite forgotten that her foot was on Snotlout's back. She didn't move it. "She's not trying to kill you, Tuffnut. It would be too much paperwork, and funerals are expensive these days."

Tuffnut thought about this for a moment while Snotlout struggled. Finally, he nodded and uncrossed his arms. "Handshake?" He held out a hand to his sister.

She took it. "EW! Blood! Cool!"

Astrid let Snotlout up the ground, even offering him her hand to make up for keeping him down there so long while she dealt with the twins. She regretted it when he tried to hold on for too long.

While the twins had been arguing and Snotlout had been pinned to the ground, the sun had been slowly sinking lower behind the rocky ridges of the land. A multitude of stars poked their way into the darkness, free to shine as they wished because neither the sun nor the moon was there to hinder them.

Uneasiness pricked at the back of Astrid's neck. Creepy things, like ghosts, happened in the dark where light refused to venture. Creepy things she didn't want to be around for.

"Where's your sense of adventure?" she asked herself.

"What'd you say?" Ruffnut asked, leaning over towards her.

Astrid shook her head. "Nothing." If the twins weren't going to be afraid, _she_ certainly wasn't.

"It's... it's kinda dark," Snotlout commented, his voice small and without its usual bravado. He moved behind Tuffnut, who was in the middle of trying to move behind him.

"Yeah!" Astrid pulled forth gusto that wasn't in her. She tossed her braid behind her shoulder and shot a daring look at her friends. "Who wants to tell ghost stories? Anyone remember Mackenzie?"

"I would rather not!" Snotlout replied hotly.

The wind picked up and whistled through the empty hollows of dead trees, and in turn the trees' branches swayed, rustling decaying leaves together. An owl hooted off in the distance. It was an uneasy sort of silence.

BOOM!

Of of seemingly nowhere, a column of fire erupted in the direction of the town. A beacon light remained lit with the angry red flames, which licked higher into the sky as they ate away at the wood.

The gang stood transfixed for another moment before another blast of fire hit another building.

"Wood," Ruffnut whispered in awe. "Old wood buildings and fire don't mix."

Tuffnut shot her a poisonous look. "How would you know that?"

"The same way you know!"

"I'm not worried or anything like that," Snotlout said, very obviously worried, "but does anyone else not like sitting in the middle of a potential war zone? It's bad for the complexion if you're sunburned, and I just got the perfect tan."

BOOM! Another explosion punctuated his words, and this time Astrid could see the outline of a dragon against the angry red.

"We're in the middle of a dragon raid, Snotlout. Who else back home gets to brag something like this?" Already, Astrid felt the heat from the flames, and shouts of awakened and angry Vikings rose into the air.

"So, like the perfectly sensible people we are," Tuffnut began.

Ruffnut jumped it. "We're going to go _towards_ the chaos!" She and Tuffnut slapped high fives before doing exactly that.

"Come on, Snotlout!" Astrid threw over her shoulder, racing after them. "We have a dragon raid to see!"

The village was alight with the clashing of swords and the roaring of beasts. Astrid had no idea what they were after in attacking the Vikings, but she guessed that animals would go for the one thing to fill their stomachs: food.

If she were a dragon, she'd want fish, and if Toothless didn't have oysters, he preferred fish. Naturally, then, the dragons would target the sea dock warehouses, where the fish were stored before immediately after they were hauled in from the nets, before the Vikings ate them.

Even though he was wearing armor, Astrid recognized Hiccup in the midst of the chaos at once. He was the only armor in full regalia who looked utterly at a loss of what to do. _This_ was the dragon raid Hiccup had the honor of fighting in and killing his first dragon.

Yelling for the twins and hoping they heard her, Astrid followed him towards the docks. They had had the same thought.

Although Astrid had never participated in a dragon raid before, dragons having gone extinct or missing before her time, the atmosphere felt off despite the chaos. Something more fundamentally wrong was in action. Something...

Water erupted.

A beast larger than a mountain emerged from the rolling masses of waters. It didn't look like a proper dragon, such as Toothless, at all, with black pools of fury for his eyes. His skull, the size of five mansions combined, opened to reveal decaying yellow teeth.

He roared, shaking the land, the sea, and the buildings around him and sending tidal waves into the anchored ships. Wood cracked.

Before the onslaught of water could reach him, Hiccup backpedaled and ran the opposite way, towards the outskirts where the twins, Snotlout, and Astrid had been.

If Hiccup was planning on killing a dragon, he was certainly heading in the wrong direction. Well, she couldn't exactly stop him, she could only follow him. Astrid turned around and grabbed Snotlout before he could pass her.

"The other way!" Astrid's feet pounded against the ground. Where was Hiccup going? Stoick would _kill_ him for running away at a time like this, if a dragon didn't first.

"I can't run as fast as you can!" Snotlout wheezed, barely audible over the sounds of dragons and Vikings.

"Sure you can!" Astrid tried to encourage him without slowing her pace.

"I'm not the track champion of Berk High!"

He had a point, albeit a small one.

"Just try to keep up!"

When Astrid saw that Hiccup was headed towards the jagged cliffs, she groaned and stopped running. Panting, she rested her hands on her knees and stared after him. "I don't know about you," she said when Snotlout caught up, "but I don't want to climb that in the middle of the dark."

"What do you mean, 'dark'? The whole city behind us is burning to bits. But don't worry," he was quick to assure, "I'll protect you!"

As Astrid was about to consider the cliff again, a black shadow arose from the canyon with an unearthly shriek, a smaller form crouching over it.

Hiccup.

Oh, he really was an idiot. _Thor_ had more brains than he did. "You're going to get yourself killed!" Astrid shook a fist into the sky.


	22. Fights in FivePeak in the Window

_A/n: I have combined chapters 22 and 23 for reading purposes._

 **Fights in Five**

When Astrid looked back and tried to describe how the fight had gone down, she really couldn't. She would have liked to be able to tell the great tale of Hiccup and Toothless's bravery in facing down the largest beast on the planet without any help from other dragons or Vikings.

But she couldn't. Because like most things in life, it had happened too fast.

One minute, she could see them. The next minute, the sky was filled with fire and smoke and the enemy dragon. A loud explosion deafened her and sent her and Snotlout reeling for their balance.

Then, all was silent.

The battle had stopped.

The dragons took for the skies, leaving behind what they had been after.

Darkness fell.

Astrid struggled to her feet and stumbled over to Snotlout, who was curled up on the ground clutching his ears. Carefully, she assisted him to his feet, and together, they lurched towards the sea.

"Hiccup couldn't have survived that," Snotlout predicted. "The fire alone, and if he was injured, he would have drowned. He doesn't have the arm muscles to swim."

" _Thank you,"_ Astrid snapped, "for that lovely vote of confidence you have. We _know..."_ She coughed into her elbow. Since the twins' wish had been granted, she could breathe in the smoke that clogged the atmosphere. "We know that he doesn't die by drowning."

"You just can't kill him!" Snotlout threw his hands in the air.

The huge dragon's corpse had fallen back into the sea. Its mass caused great tidal waves to wash over the beach and the docks, sweeping away anything that wasn't nailed down. The only good result was that the fires were put out.

Toothless poked his head above the surface of the roiling mass and let out a cry for his owner.

"Thundering Thor!" Ruffnut cried. The twins, blackened with soot, came abreast with them on the beach. "Did you see Hiccup?"

Astrid searched the sea. "I can't find him now. There's Toothless." She pointed, and Ruffnut followed her finger's direction.

The dragon struggled in the water and turned around, still looking for Hiccup. After ten seconds, he gave up and shakily rose out of the water into the air, pumping his wings to escape its prison. He disappeared in a flash.

Tuffnut's jaw dropped. "He left him! I can't believe it! What kind of a friend is he?"

Astrid was quick to rise to Toothless's defense. "He wouldn't have left Hiccup in danger. He has to be safe."

"Then where is he?" demanded Ruffnut, crossing her arms.

"I'm looking! It's a little dark, if you haven't noticed."

"I did!"

"Shh!" Tuffnut hissed. "I'm trying to find him!"

They were all looking out to sea, so they didn't notice Hiccup's body until it rolled up onto their feet. Snotlout gagged. "Is that a corpse?"

Everyone looked down at their toes and jumped back.

Peak in the Window

"I will never get that out of my head," Ruffnut groaned, rocking back and forth on her heels.

"If you sit there," Astrid warned, "the door to the healer's hut is going to open, and you're going to be knocked flat on your face!"

Tuffnut frowned. "Why'd you have to tell her that, Astrid? It would have been the sight of a lifetime!"

"How long do you think they're going to be in there?" Snotlout asked. "It's been hours, and all we've been doing is sitting here. I'm bored."

"Surely you can wait, Snotlout." Exasperated, Astrid scowled. "This isn't kindergarten."

"It could be!" Tuffnut challenged. "If we wanted it to!"

"I can't feel my ankles." Ruffnut abandoned her crouching position and stretched herself out on the healer's hut steps.

Astrid leveled a look at Tuffnut. "Do you really want to pass the time by doing addition, subtraction, or the alphabet? By all means, continue!" She couldn't really blame him, because she was just as bored as any of them were, and being bored beat being worried.

Toothless had known that Hiccup was okay and headed in their direction via a sea wave, so he had left him to their care. But it wasn't like they were doctors or something. They hadn't known what to do.

Hiccup's leg had been mangled. A bloody mass of blood, bone and tissue (Astrid remembered that Hiccup had told her that Toothless bit it off, and she had seen some suspicious tooth marks) that could not be fixed. Since the twins, Snotlout, and Astrid could not have touched him, they had to wait for twenty agonizing minutes while Hiccup bled to death until someone found him.

As if his life depended on it (scratch that – his life did depend on it), his fellow tribes people had rushed him to the simply constructed hut where they now waited.

"How long does it take..." Ruffnut's face turned green.

"Feeling sick, Sister?" Tuffnut inquired nastily.

"Like you were after eating that bar?" she shot back. "How long does it take... to do whatever they're doing in there?"

"How about you go and peek?" Snotlout suggested.

"Why don't you go, Snotlout?" Astrid didn't like people who delegated tasks to others. They had a habit of annoying her.

"Because she's closer to the door, of course," Snotlout answered in amazement, as if the answer should have crossed everyone's mind already.

Slyly, Astrid began looking around and inching her hand towards her nose. When it was close enough, she yelled, "Nose goes!" and jammed a finger firmly on the appendage.

Jaw gaping wide open like a codfish, Snotlout stared at her. "Wha?"

Since the twins were used to a spur-on-the-moment lifestyle, they quickly followed Astrid.

"Snotlout is it!" Ruffnut crowed, jumping up and dancing an Irish jig without removing her finger. "Snotlout has to look! Snotlout has to look!"

"Snotlout has to look! Snotlout has to look!" Tuffnut sang back, linking his unoccupied arm with hers. Together, they danced down the lane. "Snotlout was took!"

Astrid sniggered and dusted off her hands. "Looks like you're it, Snotlout."

He turned white. "I'm not going in there!"

"Of course you're not going in there. You're peaking in the window. That's not so bad, is it?" Not that Astrid wanted to do it. Quite the opposite: she wanted to run for the hills so she couldn't see how badly Hiccup had been maimed. She shook herself. Vikings weren't supposed to get squeamish at the sight of minor injuries. She jutted her chin at the window. "Have at it, Snotlout."

Dramatically, Snotlout sighed (an action that took twice as much of his body than it should have) and trudged over to the window. After shooting one more nasty look at Astrid, he stuck his face up against the glass.

One shake of a lamb's tail later, he thrust himself away from the window, staggered a few feet to the left, and threw up in the nearest cactus bush.

"That went well," Astrid remarked.

The twins had stopped their whooping and dancing to watch Snotlout's brave exploit. "Yeah. Real well," Tuffnut droned.

"Like passing a kidney stone well." Ruffnut mimed shooting an arrow into the air, and when it started its descent towards the ground, Tuffnut made an explosion with his hands.

"BOOM!"

"Nobody's perfect, guys," Astrid reminded them, although why she wanted to defend Snotlout's facing-weird-yucky-stuff honor was beyond her.

"I'm suing you!" Snotlout yelled back at her, still emptying the contents of his stomach into the cactus. He must have had a huge lunch. Really huge.

"Did you eat a nine course meal or something?" Astrid shot back. "You could have told us what you saw in the time you wasted chucking into a plant."

"The plant," Tuffnut objected, "is probably thankful for the extra fertilizer."

"The plant," his sister rejoined, "probably doesn't want Snotlout's small intestine all over it."

Tuffnut jeered. "Stomach. Didn't you learn anything in anatomy?

Ruffnut rolled her eyes. "Uh, we never took anatomy, remember? And everyone knows that the small intestine does the digestive stuff. What planet are you living on?"

Astrid gasped and mock clapped her hands over her mouth. "Ruffnut, are you telling me that you actually paid attention in school?"

A look of horror passed over Ruffnut's face and took up temporary residence. "You never heard that!" she screamed, lunging for Astrid, as if that would keep her from hearing words she'd already heard.

Astrid sidestepped her friend and moved towards the window. If no one else was going to do it, she was, even if her stomach felt like it was tied up in knots and pounded to dog food. Just as Snotlout had done, she peered inside the healer's hut.

After a few seconds, her eyes adjusted to the gloomy darkness and smoke accented by candlelight. When they did, the first thing she noticed was Hiccup's prone form, which a healer was bending over. She couldn't see anything to cause Snotlout to throw up. Was he really that much of a sissy?

It hit her.

The smell.

It nauseated her like a bucket of rotting corn. She stumbled away from the window to the cactus bush Snotlout was leaning over and emptied the contents of her stomach.

"Wow!" Ruffnut's tone was filled with incredulous awe. "What's in there that made the great Astrid Hofferson throw up?"

"It's not funny!" Astrid snapped, wiping her mouth. "If you think you're so brave, smell in there yourselves!"

"Sure!" Tuffnut sniggered. "Astrid Hofferson was turned away by a smell!"

Astrid glowered.

Swaggering like they owned the world, the twins sauntered up to the window, and like their friends before them, stuck their noses against the glass. Less than five seconds later, they too had joined the pow wow around the cactus plant, which was suffering from their onslaughts and drooping (if cacti can droop) in a dangerous way.

"Ergh!"

"I need...to purge...my nose..." Ruffnut gasped.

"That was worse than the time we tried to fit our entire hands into an old-fashioned glass coke bottle!" Because he was plugging his nose, Tuffnut's voice came out weird and wobbly.

Just then, the door of the healer's hut ricocheted open, and a man, the healer's assistant stepped out. Surveying the town before him, he wiped is brow and shook his head.

"I'll be back, then, with his father," he said back into the hut, and someone must have said okay, because he started off in the direction of the mansion.

"So do we follow him or stay with Hiccup?" Ruffnut asked, eyes swiveling back and forth between his retreating form and Astrid, who shrugged. Although she inwardly preened at being boss, she didn't care what they did.

"I vote," Snotlout offered, "that we stay here. It takes less energy."

"We could go in and see Hiccup," Ruffnut suggested.

Astrid was doubtful. "That might not be the best thing. Remember what it smelled like?"

"Yeah, but if they sent someone to get his father, that either means that everything's been taken care of or he's on his deathbed. And since we all know that he doesn't die on his deathbed, all of the yucky stuff must have been taken care of." Ruffnut looked rather proud of herself.

Gravely, Tuffnut nodded. "Very well. Let's go see this deathbed."

They went to see the deathbed.

They door gave them no trouble, but actually forcing themselves into the healer's hut was difficult. Like criminals being forced off to the brink, they shuffled their feet, until Snotlout, who had been trying to catch a reflection of himself in the glass, tripped over his shoelace and sent everyone sprawling into the building.

After all of the candle smoke had been cleared from her lungs, Astrid propped herself up and looked around for Hiccup. In the rather obvious spot, Hiccup was lying very still, wrapped in a mound of blankets, on one of two cots in the room.

"He looks to be fine," Tuffnut pronounced. "I don't see what ya'll were worried about."

Astrid sniffed, pretending that her eyes were watering because of the smoky atmosphere. The fire in the room was way too hot for the cubic space.

"Do you think they patched up his leg well enough?" Ruffnut asked. "You know how medicine was like – all of our history textbooks mention weird stuff like grounded-up polar bear liver."

"First off," Astrid ticked off a finger on her right hand, "you've yet again mentioned paying attention in school. Second off, polar bears have never lived on Berk."

"They could have," Snotlout, still embarrassed about the window and looking for something else to pick at, challenged. "If they wanted to."

Astrid ignored him. "Third off, eating a polar bear's liver can kill you!"

"It...can?"

Just then, the healer, who had been stirring something by a pot in a fire, crossed the room over to Hiccup and moved some of the blankets swathed around him. Mildly curious at how they had patched him up, Astrid got to her feet and followed her.

She wasn't not expecting what she saw.

"Oh," she gasped. She already knew that Hiccup lost his leg, but seeing the stump wrapped tightly in bandaged was another matter.

"What's wrong?" Ruffnut asked curiously.

"Let me guess," Snotlout sneered. "Poor Hiccup boy got a sunburn from the big bad dragon."

Astrid could not believe him. "He finally lost his leg, Snotlout. I wouldn't call that sunburn. Where's your sympathy?"

"It died with him." Tuffnut snickered at his own joke.

Ruffnut lifted a finger. "I only have one question. What's Stoick going to say?"

…

It turned out that Stoick had a lot to say. Most of it was on the incompetence of the village healers. A little bit was on the bravery of his son and how he hadn't turned out to be the wimp he'd thought he was.

"I told you to save his life, not cut off his leg!" he roared, although he didn't look too mad. It was almost as if he was just doing the duty of what a father would say.

"Excuse me for saying this," the healer said, obviously disinterested in if whatever she said offended Stoick or not, "but it was his leg or his life, and I hardly think he'll mind missing one. Lagmann the Limbless is doing just fine with one arm left."

Stoick rubbed his beard. "True, true. I'll get our blacksmith to fashion him a new one." He turned to leave, then paused for a second. "He sure turned out to be a true Viking, eh? Just like his father – a dragon killer."

A nasty gleam overtook Stoick's eyes, but if the healer noticed his menacing tone, she gave no sign of it. She only waved a hand to dismiss him and turned back to stoke the fire.

After Stoick slammed the door to the hut shut, silence descended like a cloud over the room.

"Well," Tuffnut commented. "That went well. Who wants some chocolate cake?"

Of course, things dissolved into chaos when Snotlout and Ruffnut learned he didn't have any.


	23. Forever Gone Your Memories

_A/N: One more chapter left._

 **Forever Gone Your Memories**

Time swept them away again. When they returned, the grass had turned another color, which indicated that several months had passed since they had last been there.

Although most likely for reasons other than Stoick's, Hiccup didn't take the loss of his leg too badly when he woke up from his long slumber. After looking at it wistfully for a couple of seconds, he shrugged and asked for something to eat.

He then proceeded to eat about as much as Snotlout did. Astrid supposed that being stuck in a coma for a long time had prepped his appetite.

Even though his father and everyone else were oblivious, as Vikings were wont to be, Astrid clearly saw a look in his eyes.

He wanted Toothless. He wanted to fly and to be free.

And being stuck in the mansion under Stoick's watchful eye was counter productive to that.

"He's going to do something," Tuffnut warned.

Snotlout dismissed him. "Oh, how do you know? He hasn't done anything exciting in a while, and I bet you're just making that up."

"Oh?" Ruffnut swept by Snotlout on her way to get a good look at the floor from the balcony. "I happen to know that Hiccup is going to do something, too. He's got that look in his eye that Uncle Eddie does before he goes to jail."

Astrid caught on to what Ruffnut was about to do. "Hey, I wouldn't slide down that banister if I was you. You could break and arm or something."

Ruffnut sent her a withering look. "I've been sliding down banisters since I was six months old and have never broken anything."

"The perfect time to break the perfect record, then," Astrid reasoned.

" _And as soon as you get the hang of that leg, Hiccup,"_ Stoick's voice practically boomed through the house, full of unconstrained excitement, " _you can go back to the battlefield! Now you know what taking a dragon's life tastes like!"_

Astrid winced. If he thought his son had enjoyed that, he was thinking wrong. Some muffled conversation floated up from below them, and a few seconds later, the door to a study opened. Hiccup limped out, dragging his hands through his already wild hair. As he stared up at the stairs he had to get himself up, he looked stressed.

"Ruffnut's going for the banister," Snotlout tattle-taled.

"I told you not to-" Astrid lunged for her friend, but it was too late.

Fully expecting the onslaught, Ruffnut grabbed her arms and pulled her onto the banister. Together, they went slipping and sliding down to the ground. They passed right through Hiccup and ended up in a tangled mess on the floor.

"That was so much fun!" Ruffnut leapt to her feet. "De neuvo, mi amiga!"

"De no-no!" Astrid wanted to be at the top of the stairs, not the bottom, even if it meant being closer to Snotlout.

As Hiccup slowly made his way up the stairs, his leg obviously bothering him, Astrid and Ruffnut impatiently followed him. It seemed like _ages_ before they were finally at the top of the stairs again.

He looked like he needed a break, as Snotlout so... _kindly_... pointed out, but he plowed on to his room.

"Uh, anybody have an idea why Hiccup has a girl's mirror?" Tuffnut asked. "I'd expect Ruffnut to have something like that, not him."

Ruffnut shoved Tuffnut. "Since when did I ever like flowery stuff like that?!" She gestured at the mirror, which Hiccup was using to signal out the window with.

"You're a girl," Snotlout broke in, as if he was stating a fundamental truth of the world. "Girls like stuff with pink splattered over it."

"OH, YEAH?!" Ruffnut roared. She completely missed the Night Fury plasma burst that answered Hiccup's signal. "I'm going to show you what color is going to be splattered over you!"

Unable to decide which one was worth clobbering more, she shook a fist each at Snotlout and Tuffnut.

Astrid intervened. "More than likely, that mirror was Valka's. Since Hiccup looks like he's going back down the stairs anyhow, why don't we go down first so that we're not stuck behind him?"

Tuffnut latched onto her plan. "I'll race you to the banister!" He bolted out of Hiccup's bedroom door, his sister right behind him. Astrid drove a reluctant Snotlout after them.

…

Since the twins had realized that they could touch things without getting in trouble (as long as it didn't directly affect things of the past), they decided to raid either the kitchen or the vegetable garden, whichever the past allowed.

Astrid wasn't too keen on bothering the cook in the kitchen, so she lagged behind the rest as they tromped onward to their destination. As they passed Stoick's study's door, she heard muttering from within and slowed down to hear what was going on.

" _Eh, Valka? Hiccup will get back on his feet, and we'll destroy the dragons together! He's with me! He's the only one that I can trust to help me get rid of 'em."_ Stoick's voice was twisted, so different. " _I won't stop until the blood of all of them is on the ground. Yes, Hiccup. The only one I can trust."_

He was truly mad. Astrid didn't know how she hadn't noticed his decline into whatever fantasy world he was in his head, but it wasn't the Stoick that Valka had known. Or had it been? Valka had always known Stoick hated dragons. Maybe the hate had gone to his head when Valka had died... if Astrid closed her eyes, she could see Valka lying still on the rock.

Astrid shook her head to clear the image. Stoick did not stop his fevered mumbling, but the sound of a whetstone against a knife was added to it.

For crying out loud. Not only was he ranting conspiracy theories about dragons, he was cleaning his knife collection while he was doing it!

"Hey, Astrid! Want some cheese?" Ruffnut's scream reverberated through the house. Astrid winced at the sound and left Stoick to his mad, mad ramblings. There was nothing _she_ could do to save him, and she only hoped that he didn't find out Hiccup's secret and his world didn't shatter.

…

After the first reunion after Hiccup's fight with the huge dragon, Hiccup and Toothless continued to meet. All went well... for a couple of nights. But as their moonlight rendezvous became more frequent, a nasty itching feeling grew at the back of Astrid's neck.

...

"If we thought that Hiccup and Toothless rolling in the grass was cute," Ruffnut hissed excitedly into the night, "this is going to be even better. I should sell tickets." She clapped her hands before trying to get Snotlout to play patty cakes. He was not impressed.

"Okay, you've seen this, like, fourteen times now, and it's night time and about to rain," Astrid commented. "They might have called it off tonight."

Tuffnut snorted. "Toothless is a dragon. He can't even send _texts."_

"There aren't any cell phone towers around here." Snotlout pulled out his phone. "I've checked, like, fifteen times. I'm trying to upload a selfie to Instagram."

Astrid snatched the phone out his hand. "You can do that later!" If she hadn't deleted his Instagram account by then – he spent way too much time on it, which couldn't be healthy for his ego.

"Give that back!" Snotlout swatted at her hand. "Tuffnut! Assist your fellow man and get that phone for me!"

Tuffnut paled. "And have the great Astrid Hofferson break my arm? No way! I'm not crazy!"

"Hey! Shh!" Astrid held a finger up to her lips. "I think I hear something!"

At these words, the grass shuffled and crinkled. The sound was quickly covered by the rumbling of thunder. As the large black shape of Toothless, in all of his cute and grumpy Night Fury glory, padded past them, a light drizzle began to fall.

" _Toothless?"_ Hiccup called from a little distance off.

Something was wrong. Sniffing the air, Astrid scratched the back of her neck. Why did she feel so uneasy? Everything was fine.

Toothless answered Hiccup with his customary growl.

"Hey," Astrid whispered to Ruffnut out of the corner of her mouth. "Does something seem off to you?"

"Besides for the fact that both my phone and yours ran out of battery from filming Hiccup and Toothless ages ago, no. Next question!"

"This isn't funny." Having already been following Toothless to Hiccup, Astrid picked up her pace. Everything was too foreign yet too familiar. She didn't like it one bit.

" _Hey, Bud!"_ When he saw his dragon, Hiccup's face lit up with delight.

Like a lizard, Toothless wriggled and licked Hiccup's face.

" _Yeah, I'm excited to see you, too,"_ Hiccup said, scratching Toothless _just_ where he liked it.

In Astrid's brain, the answer clicked.

 _This_ was the night Hiccup died.

The night Stoick killed him.

 _Not again_ was all Astrid could think. She'd already seen it once!

Still scratching, Hiccup hugged Toothless, and Ruffnut squealed. Astrid was going to be sick. Almost as if he could see her, Hiccup looked straight at Astrid.

His gaze told her many things: This was his only friend in the world, and he loved the dragon more than anything.

 _Do you cherish yours, Assssstrid, as much as I cherished mine?_

Astrid shook her head. She couldn't be hearing that voice, not when he hadn't died yet.

Then a twig cracked.

Tuffnut and Snotlout shrieked in terror and clung to Ruffnut. Sensing the possible danger, Hiccup pushed Toothless, who fled the scene.

" _So. When were you going to tell me?"_

" _Dad?"_ Hiccup's voice sounded so unsure, naive.

Stoick stepped out of the darkness. His face was twisted with rage. " _You've sided with them, Hiccup! All of it has been lies, hasn't it?"_ He took a menacing step towards his son, dwarfing him.

" _Dad, I can explain, if you would listen to me!"_ Hiccup threw his arms wide, a familiar that caused an ache in Astrid's chest.

Stoick's head was gone. The man disappeared and was replaced with a monster that _snapped. "You're no son of mine! You've sided with the enemy! How could you befriend a dragon? They're the scourge of Berk!"_

" _Dad! Are you hearing a word I've said? They're not what we think they are!"_ Hiccup was at least _trying_ to explain how the dragons hadn't killed Valka. How they were friends, not enemies.

Stoick didn't reply. He took a knife out of a sheath at his waist and advanced towards Hiccup.

"No!" Ruffnut exclaimed, struggling to release herself from Snotlout and Tuffnut. "He's going to kill him! Astrid, do something!"

"I can't!

Hiccup backed away, raising up his arms in a futile attempt to defend himself. " _Dad? Dad! What are you doing? You don't have to do this!"_ He couldn't run – he still wasn't used to his fake leg.

" _I have no choice! The beasts have bewitched you!"_

" _Dad! Please! For once in your life would you listen to me?! Dad!"_

" _Dad!"_

" _Dad!"_

 _Dad!_

 _Dad!_

 _Dad!_

 _Dad._

 _Dad._

Dad.

…

Understanding, an unwanted thing, dawned upon Astrid. She knew, and hated herself for knowing what she knew.

But she did know.

She knew why Hiccup was a ghost, wondered why she hadn't known sooner.

Hiccup was holding on to his existence in her world because of this.

He was holding onto memories of something precious, but that something was a reason that didn't exist anymore.

One cannot hold onto the past and live freely and wholly in the future.

It had driven his ghost mad.

So what could she do about it?

…

The world, which had been spinning, slowed down like a carousel ride at a fair and came to a stop.

"Hey, Babe, are you all right?" Snotlout, beside her, asked.

Her head cleared. Before, she would have punched Snotlout for calling her that. Now, she let it pass. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm all right. Where are Ruffnut and Tuffnut?"

"I don't know. I haven't them because I was so caught up in your beautiful complexion against the setting sun."

Astrid groaned. "Oh, my mother's going to kill me. I have to get home. Make sure the twins are all right!"

Someone off in the distance hollered in delight.

Astrid rolled her eyes. Already, they had recovered from the ordeal. "Scratch that. I've got to go. Make sure they understand that I haven't died or anything." It would be just like the twins to spread news of her death and put an obituary in the newspaper for her.

"Sure thing, honey!"

"I'm not anyone's honey!" Astrid scooped her bike up from the ground in front of the mansion and hopped on it. Within a few seconds, she had pumped it to a break-neck pace.

The ride home took forever yet at the same time not very long at all. She hardly recognized where she was going because she didn't recognize the landscape and almost forgot the road her house was one. When she finally did find the right driveway, she made sure not to break the sprinkler system again.

"Mom!" she yelled, running into the house. "Did-"

She didn't get to finish her sentence, for her mother, who fixing dinner, interrupted her. "Hello to you, too." She smiled. "All of it has been sorted out. You can go back to school tomorrow."

Astrid skidded to a stop. "Wait. What?"

Her mom shook her head. "Kids these days. The suspension. It's been suspended."

"Oh, that's great." How could she care about school after what she'd been through?

"And there's more – the city council looked into what you said about that abandoned mansion on the outside of town."

"Oh?" Astrid grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table. She was _famished._

"Don't spoil your dinner," Mrs. Hofferson scolded. "Yes. They found out that no one owned it because it's public property. After that, they made a motion to tear it down because of the hazard it poses to teens. I'm afraid that Ruffnut will be disappointed."

Astrid dropped the apple. "What? They're tearing it down? They can't do that!"

Her mom laughed. "Yes, they can. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. Get cleaned up."

Astrid looked down at her dusty clothes. How could she worry about what she was wearing when the mansion, the only thing that kept Hiccup in the real world, was going to be torn down?

"Go on." Her mom made a shooing motion with her free hand. "You've been out all day."

"Yes, Mom." She agreed, but her heart wasn't in it. She _had_ to stop them from tearing down that house.

She barely ate her dinner, evoking worried glances from her parents that grew when Astrid retired to bed early.

Astrid couldn't think. She just _had_ to stop that building from being torn down.

…

Astrid did not stop to braid her hair the next morning. With growing anxiety, she noticed that her parents had called her in to school as _sick_ and let her sleep until noon! Yes, it had helped her extra-long day from being stuck in the past, but it did not help her save Hiccup any sooner.

Her unbraided hair whipped around her face and repeatedly lodged itself in her mouth. Angrily, she wiped it away, but she did not slow her pace so it didn't happen again. She had to get to the mansion.

Before she saw the house itself, she saw the equipment poking high in the air. She'd known that the city council liked tearing down buildings (Vikings considered destruction entertainment), but to have the _equipment_ all set up...

She threw her bike to the side, next to a full-grown tree. "Hey! You can't tear down that building!" she yelled. "You just can't!"

Of course, over the roar of the machines and the general thick-headedness of her people, no one heard her.

Huffing in frustration, she prepared to march up to the foreman of the destruction sight and politely give him a piece of her mind.

Then a cold hand touched her shoulder.

"Hiccup!" she cried. "I have to go stop them! They're going to tear it down, and when the house is gone, you'll disappear. I don't want to lose you."

Hiccup smiled sadly at her. " _It's all right, Astrid."_

"No! It's not! It's my fault! If I hadn't insisted that I was right in trespassing, it wouldn't be happening. We were wrong for going where we shouldn't have even if other kids were doing it."

" _It would have happened, Astrid. If not you, then someone else in the future. It's better this way."_

"But you'll be gone _forever."_ Even though she had known him for only a short time, she didn't want to lose him. "Valka told me to understand, and I do. I could be your friend."

"You _won't be gone forever_. _I've been holding onto a memory, and now it's your turn."_

"I'm sorry." Astrid cried against the ghost. "I'm so sorry, Hiccup. I ruined everything."

" _It's okay."_

One of the demolition equipment moved towards the building.

"I'll miss you, Hiccup."

" _You'd miss all this?"_ he teased, puffing out his blood-stained chest.

Astrid punched his ghostly arm. "Oh, don't get too cocky, or you'll start to sound like Snotlout."

He grinned. " _Never."_

"Do you want your gear back?" Astrid uplooped the leather string from her neck and held it out to him.

But he shook his head. " _No, you keep it. It looks better on you than me, and I can't take it with me when I go."_

A wrecking ball swung into the building, shattering a side. Over the roar of the engines, Astrid heard glass shatter.

Wincing, Hiccup clutched his chest and stumbled back.

"Hey, don't go!"

He smiled woefully at her. " _Don't blame yourself. I've done stupider things."_

"You can't die on me!" Standing in front of a dying ghost, Astrid had never felt more helpless in her life.

" _I won't."_ Hiccup grimaced again. His right leg – the one without the prosthetic – disappeared. He grabbed his head. " _Toothless!"_

As if he had been waiting, the dragon appeared and wrapped himself around Hiccup. In obvious pain, Hiccup let go of his head and grabbed Astrid's hand. " _Promise me you won't let your friends and family go to time like mine – I only had Toothless. People need other people who understand. Like you. Or they'll go mad, like me."_

Astrid choked on her words. "I will, Hiccup." She squeezed his hand, a handshake.

He muttered something about breaking every bone in his hand. Toothless snorted.

Hiccup let go of her hand. " _Goodbye, Astrid."_ Like the sun sinking below the horizon, he slowly dissipated into nothing.

For the rest of the day, Astrid watched Hiccup's home being torn down to the ground until it was a pile of rubble, and nothing else.

And when it was forever gone, Astrid picked up her bike and walked home, the tears of what might have been drying on her face.


	24. The Door Does Open

_A/N: Thank you for all of your reviews and for reading this. And now, without further ado or author's notes no one reads anyway, I give you the last chapter!_

 **The Door Does Open**

 _One month later..._

"ASTRID! YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!"

Astrid jerked to an upright position and rubbed her eyes. It was morning _already?_

"RUFFNUT IS GOING TO TEAR DOWN THE FRONT DOOR IF YOU DON'T GET DOWN HERE!"

"Don't let her!" Astrid scrambled out of bed and hurried to get dressed and grab her school stuff. In five minutes, she charged down the stairs and snatched and apple for breakfast.

Like a dying duck, the doorbell echoes through the house incessantly.

Astrid threw open the door. "Cut it out!" She kept on going past Ruffnut, who was leaning with an elbow on the doorbell button, to her bike.

"What died and made you mad?" Ruffnut jibbed, followed her. "Your goldfish?"

"A ghost," she snapped. "About a month ago." She stopped short and stared down at Ruffnut's transport. "Is that a unicycle?"

"Yup!" Ruffnut waved to Tuffnut, who zoomed by on a unicycle of his own. "Yo! Brother of the same mother!"

"Yo!" Tuffnut waved back, lost control of his unicycle, and barreled into Snotlout, who was trying to catch a few more precious seconds of shuteye before school on the handlebars of his bike. The two veered in between two houses and ended up in someone's rose bush.

Astrid stuck her tongue out at Snotlout as she and Ruffnut pedaled past. "Meet you there!"

"It's a date!" Snotlout hollered as a thorn tore his shirt.

"You wish!" she hurled over her shoulder. She wished Hiccup could have been there. He would have many funny comments right along with them.

"Are you ready for your math test?" Ruffnut asked. "'Cause I'm sure not ready for my chemistry test! I didn't study one lick, but I did learn how to get out of a Chinese finger trap!"

"You didn't know already?" Since they had reached school, Astrid hopped off her bike and began to lock it up.

"Nooooo. Hey, by the way, you're coming toad and salamander hunting with Tuffnut and me tonight."

Astrid snapped the lock into place. "I am not!"

This was as close to denying the fact that the world was round. "You are _too!_ You promised that you would if we told you what we knew about Hiccup!" Ruffnut jabbed a finger at her. "Deny it."

"I deny it. What time?" She sighed – and made a mental note to see if her rubber boots still fit her. Knowing the twins, they would pick the muckiest place on Berk to find those toads.

"Five. Meet us at Trickle Lake, Dock C. See you after I fail this chemistry test!" Ruffnut cheerily saluted her and hurried down the hallway to her class.

Astrid went to her math test, which went well, although she didn't really remember what she answered after they stumbled out of the classroom, head swimming with graphs and logarithmic functions. With his brilliant mind, Hiccup probably would have found it easy.

It had been a month! Why hadn't she stopped thinking about that ghost?

Ruffnut and Tuffnut met her in the hallway. "Hello!" Ruffnut called. "How'd it go?"

"I'm not sure," Astrid answered, rubbing her eyes. "How about on your end?"

"Don't know yet," Tuffnut cheerfully answered.

Even though she would have preferred to take a nap, a rising popularity among the high-school students in Berk, Astrid forced herself to go to her next class and her next until it was lunch period. She pulled out the lunch her mom had made for her and went to sit at their regular table, where Snotlout had already faceplanted.

"I take it your chemistry test didn't go too well?" she asked, sliding onto the bench.

"I don't know," Snotlout grumbled. "I was asleep."

The twins landed. "Good morning!"

"It's afternoon," Snotlout snapped. "And keep it down. I'm trying to get my beauty rest."

"I'm surprised you even noticed the time of day, and if you haven't noticed, this is a cafeteria. It's supposed to be loud." Behind Snotlout, Astrid noticed that Fishlegs, Berk's resident nerd, was eating all by himself like he normally did, a book propped up in one meaty fist.

An idea formed itself in Astrid's mind. "Hey, Tuffnut. Get Fishlegs's attention."

Tuffnut stared at her. "Why would I want to do that?" he asked, puzzled.

"Because I said so!" She slapped a fist down onto the table. "And I know you're _dying_ to try out that new sling shot I have in your back pocket that Mrs. Nelson is going to confiscate as soon as she gets over here."

True enough, Mrs. Nelson was marching over there to take the potential weapon away from him.

Although Tuffnut was dragged off to the principal's office, Fishlegs did join the rest of them for lunch, and surprisingly, he was pretty funny, not the total loser most people thought he was. Hiccup would have liked being there, too, Astrid thought. He could have been friends with Fishlegs. They both had brilliant minds.

Astrid had just thrown her lunch bag into the trash and made Fishlegs promise to join them tomorrow when the loudspeaker buzzed to life.

" _Astrid Hofferson to the principal's office, please. Astrid Hofferson to the principal's office."_

Either Tuffnut had called on her for help or something else. If the secretary had used "please," she wasn't in trouble, but she couldn't think of a reason for the principal to want her.

"See you at Trickle Lake," she called to Ruffnut as she pushed her way through the throng of students to get to the principal's office. Maybe he was still sore over the suspension? No, that couldn't be possible. He hadn't liked all of the students going to the old mansion anyway and was glad over its tearing down.

She was forced to wait a little bit while Principal Drago talked in muted, friendly tones with someone else. When he had finished, he called her in.

"Astrid," he rumbled. "Since you are one of our top students and athletes, I would like you to give our new student a tour of the building. I know it's a little late in the day for it, but there was an issue with some paperwork about a service dog. Toothless – the names kids come up with these days."

Astrid's eyes turned to the new student, who hadn't left the room and was sitting, facing Drago, in one of the offered chairs.

Skinny frame... red hair...

 _No way._

He turned around to face her. "Hi, Astrid," he said, grinning, "it's nice to meet you!"

"You idiot!" she screamed at him, fists clenching.

Principal Drago's brow darkened. "What did you say?"

"I meant, 'You got it!' Let's go, Hiccup!" She grabbed her arm, which was solid, not misty. Principal Drago didn't even ask her how she knew his name as she dragged him up out of the chair, prosthetic leg catching on the leg of the chair, and out of the room.

When they were safely out of earshot, she turned him around to face her. "How are you alive? I thought you died when they tore the mansion down! Do you know what it's like to think you're never going to see someone again for a month? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Hiccup Haddock! I outta punch you in the arm!"

He grinned. "Someone's happy to see me. I did it, Astrid. I let go of the past and found something – someone – else in the present to live for."

As she understood, Astrid's own smile blossomed across her face. "Well, then," she said, face turning red. "I know some people who want to meet you. Do you remember Snotlout, Fishlegs Ruffnut and Tuffnut? And how good are you at hunting for salamanders?"

Together, they walked through the school hallways, a once ghost and a young Viking lady, both excited for what could be.

 **THE END**


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